CA Sustainable Mountain Development Report

For the five countries of Central Asia – the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan – the sustainable development movement launched in Rio in 1992 has played out in the context of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. The transition from a planned to a market economy and from totalitarianism to democracy and independence was a rocky period of geopolitical changes that coincided with rapid technological development and globalization and a growing awareness of environmental changes related to climate, biodiversity and land degradation. Regional tensions and conflicts gave rise to new security requirements. New demographic and labour market realities and changes in the ownership and control of natural resources created shifting social dynamics.

This report analyses the region’s progress in sustainable mountain development over the past 20 years, and examines how the forces and trends affecting Central Asia create both challenges and opportunities for the new countries and their people. The Lucerne World Mountain Conference in October 2011 issued a call for action for the protection of water supplies, the reduction of poverty and the unlocking of the economic potential of the mountains of the world. A summary of how Central Asia is performing against the Lucerne call for action follows:

• Compared to other mountain regions, Central Asia lacks experience in mountain governance, but the 2002 Bishkek Global Mountain Summit, which concluded with the formation of the Bishkek Mountain Platform, marks a turning point, and provides a strong basis for further improvements.

• In the energy, mining and tourism sectors, the challenges regarding the equitable sharing of benefits are substantial, but so too are the opportunities, and numerous efforts are underway to unlock the economic potential for the benefit of all the affected parties.

• The decentralization that has occurred as part of the transition to independence has increasingly involved mountain people in the decision-making that affects their lives and communities. The region has experienced an impressive growth in the number of Village Organizations and Civil Society Organizations whose participation has influenced countless decisions.

• In many instances of transboundary or highland–lowland tensions, the political will to resolve mutual problems is missing, but international aid organizations such as the Aga Khan Foundation and regional institutions such as the Interstate Commission for Sustainable Development are working on capacity-building and on the generation and exchange of knowledge, expertise and innovation in mountain development.

• Organic agriculture and small hydropower offer promising avenues for private sector investment in sustainable development in Central Asia, and the region’s strategic location is a built-in incentive for private investment in trade and public investment in the transport infrastructure. Commitments to mountain development may change with the political winds, and mountain advocates may find more consistent public support for their concerns by working to integrate mountain issues into the Rio conventions and the associated country plans and programmes.

• All of the Central Asia countries recognize the vulnerability of their mountain ecosystems, but the protection of these ecosystems could benefit from linking the strategies for mountain development with other, broader agreements on trade, economic development, conflict resolution and resource management.
• The Global Environment Facility supports the preparation of reports and plans related to the Rio conventions, and funds projects from the local to the regional level in Central Asia. The mountains could benefit from more explicit inclusion in other development projects, and the countries of the region may want to consider debt exchange – a mechanism that redirects debt repayments to sustainable mountain development.

With more than 90 per cent of their national territories considered as mountainous, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are mountain countries, while Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – with much smaller mountainous regions – are countries with mountains. The mountain regions of these latter three countries are no less important, but this report necessarily devotes more space to the main Central Asian mountain regions, which lie in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Central Asia mountain report team recommends the exploration of two ideas that have been a part of discussions of sustainable mountain development in Central Asia:

• The creation of a mountain countries group under the auspices of the United Nations
• The exchange of external debt for an equivalent investment in sustainable development.

Download Central Asia Mountain Development Report

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