The Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation–Armenia pursues a range of projects to promote human and civil rights, education, and freedom of information. To that end, its main areas of focus include justice reform, election monitoring, and support for independent media.

The foundation’s work has become all the more vital in a country that in 2008 was wracked by violence and state repression following contested election results. Since then, it has struggled to reverse Armenia’s dramatic turn away from democracy and human rights—organizing legal representation for victims of the violence and helping to empower the country’s NGO community through support for documentation of rights violations, court monitoring, and legal challenges to electoral fraud.

The foundation also continues to strive toward facilitating more long-term reform through innovative and flexible initiatives, both large and small—such as implementing country-wide needle exchange programs to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing computers and Internet access in rural areas. It works closely with the OSIAF-founded Partnership for Open Society—a coalition of 60 civil society organizations—to ensure that there is open debate and access to information on a wide array of social and political issues in Armenia, from religious tolerance and emigration to budgetary transparency.