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IFAD in the Kyrgyz Republic IFAD has approved loans to the government of the Kyrgyz Republic for a total of US$11.4 million. They support projects for agricultural development that are worth US$44.2 million and are in line with the government’s poverty reduction strategy. Research, training and extension have been the main focus of project activities. In the ongoing Agricultural Support Services Project, IFAD’s loan specifically supports activities that provide agricultural advisory services to poor rural people, especially women. The project is nearing completion and has developed a successful model for providing rural advisory services. Through a loan of US$3.5 million, IFAD was an active partner in the Sheep Development Project initiated by the World Bank. The project was instrumental in forming a federation of sheep breeders, the Kyrgyz Sheep Breeders Association. The association represents a pioneering model that supports the government’s commitment to democratize institutions. IFAD strategy in the Kyrgyz Republic The goal of IFAD’s country and regional strategy is to reduce rural poverty by helping poor rural people improve their livelihoods and living standards. The strategy’s principal objectives are to:
IFAD’s operations in the country include attention to gender, preparedness for emergencies, and remittances from workers in other countries.
Through collaboration with the Kyrgyz Agricultural Finance Corporation (KAFC), IFAD has gained valuable experience in the development of rural financial services for the benefit of poor rural people. Working with KAFC and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Agricultural Support Services Project, IFAD helped create a model for a farm development fund. Source: IFAD Rural poverty in the Kyrgyz Republic Although the economy has stabilized and grown in recent years, the country is one of the poorest in the world. Gross national income (GNI) per capita was $440 in 2005. Almost 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.
About two thirds of Kyrgyzstan’s population live in rural areas, and livestock breeding is the mainstay of most rural households outside the few major valleys. The rural population includes three quarters of the country’s poor — 1.8 million poor people — who live mainly in remote and mountainous areas.
More than half of the population works in agriculture. The sector is still the backbone of the economy, though its share in GDP declined to 30 per cent in 2005.
In the early 1990s, in the newly independent republic, poor rural people were particularly vulnerable to the effects of the economic transition from a command economy to a free market economy. The transition severely disrupted agriculture and increased rural poverty.
Kyrgyz farmers are still struggling to overcome the difficulties that arose when the Soviet support system collapsed, the economy contracted sharply and gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 50 per cent. The shift from a monoculture system based on sheep-raising and wool production to a multi-crop system resulted in a decline in agriculture in the years after independence. Recovery has been slow. Although the agricultural sector is showing signs of growth, poverty persists in rural areas. Rural people’s access to basic public services such as running water, public sewerage, health and education has deteriorated.
The country’s highly successful agrarian reform redistributed land to individual farmers and family-owned farming enterprises, and about 70 per cent of the cultivable land is now privately owned. In the early 1990s large numbers of unemployed workers returned to rural areas and turned to farming for a livelihood. Small-scale subsistence farming increased, but rural poverty grew along with it because resource-poor and untrained farmers could not produce enough for an adequate income.
In an agricultural sector dominated by livestock production, growth depends on efficient use of pastures, which are one of the country’s major resources. But the condition of pastures has deteriorated significantly. Winter pastures are being overused and have become severely degraded, and summer pastures are underused. Pastures around villages and along roads are heavily overgrazed. The root of the problem is in the fragmentation of administrative control over pastures, which inhibits the seasonal movement of herds from winter pastures to more distant summer pastures at higher elevations. Production has decreased and this has had a negative effect on the livelihoods of livestock breeders and other agricultural workers.
Who are the country’s poor rural people and why are they poor? The country’s poorest people include subsistence farmers and livestock breeders in remote rural areas. Rural people who sank into poverty during the economic transition have found it difficult to rise above the poverty line. An increase in their incomes depends largely on an increase in production, but they face a range of constraints:
Where are the country’s poor rural people? The country’s poorest people are in its most remote rural areas, where infrastructure is poor and there is little or no access to markets and social and financial services.
Sources: IFAD, World Bank |
Kyrgyzstan |
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