Why Short-Term Thinking Isn't a Mindset Problem, It's a Survival Strategy

The Question We Need to Stop Asking

When organizations talk about income-generating activities for refugee women in Armenia, there's an assumption buried in almost every program design: that these women need to be taught how to think long-term. That short-term focus is a knowledge gap. A mindset problem. Something to fix.

It isn't.

For displaced women from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), women from war-affected families, women who lost husbands and homes in a matter of days, short-term thinking is not a failure of vision. It's a rational, deeply intelligent response to conditions that leave almost no room for anything else. You don't build a five-year plan when you don't know where you'll be living in five months.

Understanding this distinction is not a minor detail. It's the foundation of everything that actually works in economic empowerment for refugee women. Get it wrong, and programs feel patronizing, miss the mark, and collapse. Get it right, and something real starts to happen.

What Forced Displacement Actually Does to Financial Thinking

Between September 23 and October 10, 2023, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenian refugees left Nagorno-Karabakh and arrived in Armenia. In 20 days. By mid-October, the government had registered 101,848 newly displaced individuals. More than half were women and girls.

These women didn't arrive with savings. They arrived with children, with trauma, and with nothing else. By the time Arev Society and the Armenian Fund for Sustainable Development (AF4SD) teams were conducting intake interviews, nearly every woman we spoke with said the same thing: she had no idea where she would be living once the initial housing assistance ended. They were all indebted, and still are.

The numbers confirm what the conversations showed. Of the 100 women who entered our Income Generating Activity (IGA) Creation Program between 2022 and 2025, an extraordinary 70.4% had pre-existing debts before they ever received a single Armenian dram of support. Of those, 88.2% owed more than 150,000 AMD. These women weren't starting from zero. They were starting from below zero.

When the mind is occupied with debt, with unstable housing, with soaring food prices you can't pay for and the prescription you can't fill, the brain doesn't naturally allocate resources to five-year projections. This isn't a weakness. It's how human cognition responds to scarcity.

Research on poverty and decision-making has documented this for years. The mental bandwidth consumed by immediate survival leaves genuinely less capacity for long-term planning. It's not a character flaw. It's cognitive science.

So the question isn't, "How do we change the way these women think?"

The question is, "How do we change the conditions that make short-term survival the only logical priority?"

The Real Barrier Is Not Mindset. It's the Harsh Reality.

Alyona, 35 years old, a war widow, a refugee, a cancer survivor, and completely clear-eyed about what she needed. She had a business idea. She even tried to pursue it.

"I live with my parents in this house that we rent for 80,000 AMD, and we have a small land and a tiny cowshed. I am a cancer survivor, but not completely treated. So, every quarter I need to undergo a specific treatment, which is supposed to be free, but some branded medicines are not. The pension that I have after my husband's death is enough to live on, but insufficient to buy my medicines. As my parents are retired and in addition to this, my mother has visual impairments, we thought we could obtain business credit for purchasing two race cows for generating a stable income through selling milk. However, the loan interest rate was unaffordable, and we abandoned the idea. Your project supported us and kept this activity running, but it is not a solution to our problems. We live day in, day out, struggling but we can't move forward. We are grateful but stuck and don't know how to increase the number of cows, which would increase income. I would love to request additional funding, but I know you've hit the cap and can't go further."Alyona — War widow, 35 years old, refugee, cancer survivor, Program beneficiary, IGA: Dairy farming, Armenia

She wasn't thinking short-term. She was being blocked at every door that leads to long-term.

This is the pattern Arev Society sees again and again. Refugee women from war-affected families in Armenia are not lacking ambition or vision. The barriers they face are structural, not psychological. Three years after the massive arrival of refugees from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Armenia, these forcibly displaced people have enormous difficulty finding a financial solution to their problems. Those who chose to obtain Armenian citizenship and have the right to state vouchers to purchase accommodation are heavily indebted to complete the funding for a mortgage, and this is the reason why they can't get loans to start a business. The financial assistance from major civil society actors and diaspora drastically diminished and has a tendency to dry up, and they all have no more "privilege" to be considered as vulnerable as a refugee, after the emergency period. This puts them on equal footing with others in competing for potential financial assistance, which is not fair.

What Can We Do?

We, at Arev Society, together with the Armenian Fund for Sustainable Development, do our best to empower them. We help them get free AI, Digital Literacy Courses, and English Lessons, and recently we've also started offering free Career empowerment training.

With all of this behind us, we now need the support to go further. There are women here who are motivated, ready to move beyond simply making ends meet and build something real for themselves economically. We started from scratch, spent almost four years laying the groundwork, and witnessed genuine drive and ambition. These women want to grow, and they have what it takes. But our means are limited. They need more support, and so do we, to keep walking this road alongside them.

What Changes When the Ground Is Stable

The data from the Women Empowerment 2022–2025 program tells a clear story about what becomes possible when immediate pressures are addressed first.

Of the 100 women who launched small businesses through the program, 42% now earn between $200 and $400 per month from their enterprises. Another 13% earn more than $400 monthly. An overwhelming 87% rate their business's income as "Good" or "Excellent."

These numbers come from women who, statistically, arrived in the program with no savings, existing debt, disrupted professional histories, and care responsibilities that would have made standard employment impossible.

Monthly Earning from IGA

Reminder: Minimum Salary in Armenia is 75,000 AMD ~ $200 USD

What "Long-Term Thinking" Actually Requires

If we want refugee women in Armenia to plan for the future, we have to make the future feel reachable. That means a few unglamorous but non-negotiable things.

It means housing stability. You cannot build a business with one eye permanently on whether your lease will be renewed. It means childcare solutions, so that the women carrying the greatest care burdens aren't automatically excluded from programs that run during school hours. It means a start-up model that doesn't add to a debt crisis. And it means coaching that continues past launch day, because the first year of any enterprise is where most of them fail.

Arev Society's approach to all of this is grounded in one conviction: these women don't need to be changed. The conditions around them do.

When a woman like Astghik, a mother of three displaced from Artsakh, opened her own beauty salon in Ashtarak in November 2023 with in-kind support and ongoing mentorship, she was finally thinking long-term for the first time. She had always wanted this. She just needed someone to stop asking her to dream without giving her the tools to build.

"It is very important for me to do what I love. I get so much joy and satisfaction from my work."Astghik — Mother of three, displaced from Artsakh, beauty salon owner, Ashtarak, Armenia

The Work Ahead

The government assistance program that helped 2023 arrivals cover housing and basic costs is now limited to children and has ended for adult refugees. For many families, the chances of securing additional funding through grants are slim, and it is high time to cope with life's hardships alone.

But none of that is possible without sustained investment. Every business we've helped launch. Every skill taught. Every woman who is no longer surviving on aid because she has built something of her own. All of it traces back to donors who understood that what looks like a mindset problem is actually a resource problem.

The math is not complicated. When 100 women with no savings, significant debt, and disrupted lives launch enterprises and 87% report they're profitable, the intervention is working. What isn't sound is doing all of this at the current scale and calling it enough.

You Can Change What's Possible for Her

Together with AF4SD, Arev Society's 2025–2030 strategy is built around deepening this work rather than repeating it. We are now focusing on vulnerable women, finding concrete ways to offer incentive grants to businesses that have already been supported, while equipping these women with the skills to run their activities in a smart and sustainable way.

That means financial literacy, better business management, digital marketing, e-commerce, and career development. Because the deeper goal is independence — to help these women organize their activity, stand on their own feet, and never have to depend on aid again.

The emergency label will not last forever. After some years, refugee status fades, and these women will face the same conditions as the rest of the population. We want them to be ready, self-sufficient, capable, and free.

If this article has done one thing, we hope it has made clear that the refugee women Arev Society and AF4SD serve are waiting for conditions that make their existing vision survivable.