Programme description

Title: Programme for the sustainable use of natural resources in Central Asia
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
Overall term: 2002 to 2013

Context

More than 80 percent of Central Asia consists of arid regions. The ecological fragility of arid ecosystems requires conservative forms of land use, which do not run the risk of irreversibly damaging natural productivity, or jeopardising vital resources and people’s livelihoods. Many years of ruthless exploitation of its resources have desolated vast tracts of Central Asia. In extreme cases, they have become uninhabitable. The once prosperous harbour towns of the Aral Sea, for instance, now lie stranded 40 kilometres away from its receding banks as it dries up. The dominant land use practices degrade soil and water resources, forests and biodiversity. The rural population bears the direct consequences of this man-made desertification in the form of rising poverty. Over time, these adverse effects impact on the economy and society as a whole. Economic losses, in particular through reduced soil fertility and the consequent drop in agricultural yields, have touched the 30 percent mark during the last decade.

Globally, Central Asia is one of the regions most strongly affected by climate change. In order to limit the dreadful combined effects of an arid climate, the degradation of resources and climate change, natural resources and the ecosystem in this region must be stabilised and rehabilitated. These are the only elements in the equation that can be influenced. Typical problems for Central Asia include:

• the degradation of grazing land and the steppe;
• the salinisation of irrigated areas used for crops;
• the degradation of all forest types;
• the destruction of highland vegetation to meet the need for heating fuel.

Objective

National, regional and local strategies to fight desertification are being effectively implemented throughout the whole region. Conditions are in place in Central Asia that enable adaptation to climate change and the protection of habitats and natural resources for future generations.

Approach

The experiences of resource conservation projects in transition countries have shown that local-level measures are the best point of contact for securing the participation of beneficiaries in planning and implementing activities. First of all, practical evidence must be produced to show how conservation can work at that level, what is needed to make it happen, and what results can be achieved. The results should not be limited to just the good examples. It is important that, once they have been accepted, solutions should be passed up through all the levels, ultimately flowing into new regulations and an improvement legal framework. Alongside this grassroots approach, an attempt is also being made to use discussion and reflection at the national level to inspire proactive policies in all sectors which use resources.

The Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM) was founded in 2004 as a joint initiative to plan, fund and coordinate regional and national measures to fight land degradation and improve rural living conditions. The governments of all five of the project’s participant countries are involved in CACILM; so too are donor countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Canada, and numerous organisations – the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Mechanism (GM) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Bank and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

To mainstream natural resource management at the national level, the programme cooperates with the national offices of CACILM in Central Asia to encourage the necessary processes. In the first phase (January 2007 to September 2009), CACILM focused on land management, while topics for the second phase (October 2009 to December 2013) will cover protecting biodiversity and water resources and assisting countries in adapting to climate change.

Results achieved so far

The results of the programme can be seen in about 10 individual projects across Central Asia. Each project uses its own system of monitoring and evaluation. There is a growing number of institutions and organisations which plan and implement activities for the sustainable use of natural resources at the local level, with the participation of the target groups and beneficiaries. Solutions developed at the local level are transferred to the respective national levels and are being incorporated there in reforms to the legal and regulatory framework. At a regional level, it is now possible to access a growing number of successfully tested conservation approaches from all five countries, and share them using regional exchanges and learning platforms.