Tajikistan

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Please download the PEI Country fact sheet on Tajikistan(PDF)

 

Basic facts of the PEI in Tajikistan

  • The PEI Tajikistan country programme Phase I was started in May 2010 and will run to 2012.
  • PEI Tajikistan is executed jointly by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and UNDP Tajikistan.
  • The main outcome of the PEI Tajikistan Phase I is to enhance capacity of government and other national and sub-national stakeholders to integrate poverty-environment linkages into sustainable, pro-poor development planning and budgeting. Key entry points for poverty-environment mainstreaming are regional and district development planning and budgeting processes in the Sughd oblast (province), the current Poverty Reduction Strategy monitoring and evaluation framework, and the next national mid-term development strategy (2013-2015).
  • PEI has been integrated into the UNDP Tajikistan umbrella multi-focus Communities Programme. This programme brings together projects in the areas of poverty reduction, environment, disaster management and democratic governance.
  • PEI works with the Sughd Regional Working group on development and with 14 district-level working groups on the elaboration of District Development Programmes. Working groups are composed of regional authorities, civil society and the private sector.
  • Key development partners include GIZ and DFID's Rural Growth Programme .
  • The PEI Phase 1 (2010–2012) project budget amounts to USD 900,000, and parallel funding from the Rural Growth Programme (900,000 USD).

 

The context of poverty-environment mainstreaming in Tajikistan

  • 46.7 % of the population live in poverty and 13.8 % live in absolute poverty. Out of 7.1 million, 73% live in rural areas.
  • The main environmental problems in Tajikistan include unsustainable agriculture practices leading to land degradation, lack of reliable energy supply, high vulnerability to natural disasters and climate change, and water and food insecurity.
  • Agriculture is the country's main employer and the majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The agricultural sector employs 60% of the workforce and 80% of the population depend directly or indirectly on agriculture. Land degradation is a key factor leading to low agricultural productivity and consequently low economic returns and reduced incomes for farmers. While only 7 per cent of the territory is considered to be suitable for economic land use, about two-thirds of Tajikistan's population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture.
  • Agriculture provided 18% of GDP in 2010 and 18% of export revenue is attributable to agriculture, with cotton being the key agricultural export crop.
  • Over 1 million people in Tajikistan, primarily in rural areas, have little or no access to an adequate energy supply, particularly during the winter. Over 95% of Tajikistan's power generation capacity is based on hydro electricity. The absence of a reliable electricity supply has forced large parts of the rural population to increasingly turn to the burning of conventional biomass and fossil fuels to meet their energy needs. The related cutting of forests, loss of biodiversity, degradation of soils, and deterioration of indoor air quality, is putting further pressure on rural communities in Tajikistan. At the same time, the attempts to develop significant income-generating activities and to raise living standards in rural communities have largely failed due to the absence of a reliable electricity supply.
  • Tajikistan's principal strategic document, the National Development Strategy 2007–2015 defines the country priorities as achieving sustainable economic growth, expanding the public's access to basic social services and reducing poverty. The country implements a Poverty Reduction Strategy 2010–2012 (PRS 3), and is initiating a final mid-term strategy for 2013-2015 in the frames of the current National Development Strategy, calling for: increasing institutional capacity to promote environmental sustainability; preventing and coping with natural disasters; sustainable use of natural resources; and managing biodiversity and ecosystems.
  • The strategies already identify the promotion of environmental sustainability as one of the country's development priorities, but weak implementation capacities have thus far hampered serious progress. While Tajikistan has an advanced legislative framework for environmental protection in place, compliance is unsatisfactory due to inadequate implementation mechanisms, lack of financial resources, and insufficient interagency coordination.
  • At the subnational level, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is leading the process of elaborating District Development Programmes based on development priorities and measures identified for the next four years. UNDP provides support to the Ministry in the framework of the Rural Growth Programme, with GTZ. The overall aim is to institutionalize subnational planning and to improve coordination with the key country development strategies.
  • The process of elaborating district development programmes provide great entry points for poverty–environment mainstreaming.

 

Main activities

  • Finalization of an economic study which presents in monetary and non-monetary terms the value and benefits of sustainable land management for overall economic development, income generation and poverty reduction
  • Building awareness of country stakeholders on poverty-environment concepts, objectives, activities and results.
  • Reviewing and evaluating existing poverty-environment indicators and developing a set of adequate indicators for national and subnational planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation processes, in cooperation with the National Statistical Agency (GosKomStat)
  • Improving capacity of key stakeholders in applying poverty-environment indicators in PRS monitoring, implementation and evaluation, in coordination with the UNDP project on "Improvement of the National Development Strategy/PRS implementation".
  • Building capacity of legislative authorities on environmental sustainability, and improving participation of the Ecological Commission of the Parliament in budgeting processes.
  • Including environmental sustainability as a cross cutting issue in the next national mid-term strategy (2013-2015) to be elaborated till the end of 2012, which will include more interrelation of programming and budgeting.
  • Developing guidance and training packages to build the capacity of the planners to integrate poverty-environment linkages in Tajikistan's planning processes and mechanisms at different levels and institutionalizing poverty-environment approaches through the National Institute of Civil Servants Training.
  • Providing technical assistance to district authorities and other stakeholders in integrating poverty–environment linkages in the Sughd region planning processes. This includes 14 district development programmes, related implementation measures, monitoring and evaluation systems.
  • Follow up application of environmental sustainability criteria by the district development Trust Funds (established by the UNDP–GTZ-DFID Rural Growth Programme).
  • Demonstrating benefits of environmentally sustainable socio-economic activities through implementation of te pilot projects prioritized in the district development programmes in cooperation with sub-national authorities.
  • Demonstrating benefits of the environmentally sustainable micro lending activities through introducing new microloan products in pilot organizations and distributing "green" loans.
  • Raising awareness on environmentally sustainable agricultural practices through the leaders of agricultural extension services.

 

Main achievements

  • Study estimating economic impact of land degradation finalized and widely consulted with key stakeholders.
  • State Statistics Agency in the process of revising and upgrading its electronic database adopted Poverty-Environment indicators. The indicators have been included in all 14 pilot District Development Programmes ; out of 37, 18 indicators are poverty-environment indicators.
  • The Committee for Environmental Protection, the main country environmental authority, has been included in the multi-stakeholder and inter-ministerial national Steering Committee of the UNDP Communities Programme (established seven years ago), and into the regional Steering Committee of the Rural Growth Programme. This is first PEI result in terms of strengthening the role of the Committee for Environmental Protection in pro-poor socio-economic development planning.
  • Guidance on poverty-environment mainstreaming fully integrated in the methodology for District Development planning: The original methodology of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade did not refer to environmental sustainability. The guidance has became an integral part of the district planning methodology of the Ministry by now.
  • Training Handbook on poverty-environment mainstreaming has been elaborated and applied to train national- and district-level authorities, planners and other stakeholders in addressing the poverty-environment nexus in district development plans. The handbook and the guidance above were revised after lessons learned from their pilot application in 14 selected district planning processes.
  • Training materials on mainstreaming poverty-environment issues into development planning and local economic development were adapted by the Institute of Civil Servants Training and included into the curriculum to be taught nationwide, and also into the Institute's Master of Public Administration Programme.
  • Fourteen districts in Sughd region considered environment and climate sustainability in their development plans. Almost 60% of all District Development Plans fully integrated poverty-environment recommendations for relevant sectors and 40% of all plans have now a separate chapter on environment. The poverty-environment nexus is integrated also into the design and application of the district Trust Funds/RGP piloted financial mechanism.
  • The Trust Fund project proposal template includes information on how project / measure complies with environment and climate sustainability criteria, along with criteria on economic, financial and social viability.
  • Environment sustainability was included into the revised Sughd Region Development Strategy (2010–2015) and integrates district priorities.
  • Environment and climate sustainability screening was applied to 90 District Development Plan implementation projects submitted to the donor district Trust Fund and 65 were approved. Out of that, six projects with strong focus on environmental sustainability and climate risk adaptation relevant for development, were approved by the Trust Fund Committee for District Development Plans Implementation. This implementation is funded jointly by the PEI, Sughd region government, district government, and the community. Projects are in the area of agriculture, energy efficiency, irrigation, land and pasture management and waste management and are expected to contribute to creation of additional jobs, local tax generation, and income generation through use of new land and new types of business activities. In addition, four out of 65 Trust Fund approved projects were identified as to go through the State Environmental Expertise, and the rest to include at least environmental risk plans.
  • PEI has trained two MLFs covering targeted districts of the Sughd Region in screening business plans for environmental sustainability, and presented examples of 'green' investment projects. PEI provided those MLFs with moderate funding to target Green Business Loans.

 

Lessons learned

  • In Tajikistan, the lack of systematic analysis of the allocation, disbursement and execution of the budget to the environmental sector is the key challenge for PEI : to define the best approach to mainstream poverty-environment into budgeting processes.
  • Low capacity in poverty-environment mainstreaming requires capacity building efforts at all levels of government, and involving legislative brunch.
  • Lack of interaction between government departments at different levels requires intense efforts on communication of poverty-environment linkages. This includes vertically – from district to regional and national levels– and horizontally – across ministries, regional and district departments related to poverty-environment issues.


Way forward

  • The economic study findings of estimating benefits of sustainable land management for economy and poverty reduction will be used to influence policies being formulated in the national midterm strategy (2013-2015) and for further awareness-raising.
  • At national level, environmental sustainability will be included in the development of the new mid-term strategy (2013-2015) with the technical assistance and capacity building programme involving the leader of the exercise (Coordination Working group at the Ministry of Economic Development) and working groups of line ministries.
  • More coordination is anticipated with the legislative branch of the government and capacity building of the parliament members on environment sustainability.
  • Continued capacity building at the national, regional and district levels, through application of the poverty-environment mainstreaming guidance by the Institute of the Civil Servant Training.
  • Focus on raising awareness on the importance of poverty-environment linkages and poverty-environment achievements throughout the country.
  • Continued capacity building of the national and sub-national environment committees in order to involve them better into decision making processes.
  • Disseminating preliminary results of demonstration projects to show connection between sustainable use of natural resources and economic benefits, and organize lesson sharing from other successful demonstration projects.
  • Improved design of M&E systems for District Development Plans.

 

 

Key Documents for PEI Tajikistan

PEI programme document

  • Programme document, May 2010- December 2012, Government of Tajikistan/Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative, May 2010
  • PEI Tajikistan: Inception Report, 2011

Finding the entry points and making the case - Raising awareness, communications and building partnerships

  • UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative & CarNET Information Network: “Road to Copenhagen: Climate Change and Poverty in Central Asia”, outcomes of the regional e-discussion, October – December 2009 [English][Russian]

Influencing policy processes at sub-national level

Miscellaneous