Naryn, Kyrgyzstan (22 February 2012) – During February 22-24 administration of Naryn Province will work on finalizing the Naryn Province Development Strategy with support of the the UNDP and UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI). During 3 days Vladimir Mikhalev, Policy Advisor on Poverty Reduction of UNDP Regional Center for Europe and CIS in Bratislava, and staff of the Naryn Province Administration jointly work on the Development Strategy taking into account linkages of poverty and environment.
The experts of strategic development sectors, representatives of private sector, local administrations and non-governmental organizations are taking part in the workshop.
Vladimir Mikhalev: “The majority of Kyrgyzstan’s populations live in rural areas that have high poverty level. It is obvious that these people heavily rely on the state of environment: quality of soil and water for their livelihood. Degrading quality of soil, scarcity of irrigation water, increasing risks of natural disasters pose direct threat to people with low income, who are mainly engaged in agriculture. In other words, we can not overcome poverty without first solving the issue of environmental sustainability. We’ll try to solve this task during the workshop.”
PEI is implemented by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic with support of UNDP and UNEP. The initiative focuses on strengthening financial and technical support to the Government for better integration of environmental and poverty considerations into national, sectoral and local development plans and budgeting. Main implementing partners are the Office of the First Vice Prime-Minister, Ministry of Economics and Antimonopoly Policy, National Agency for Regional Development and the State Agency on Environment Protection and Forestry.
Two territories, Naryn province and Suusamyr village, that have the highest poverty level across the country, were selected as pilot areas for implementation of this initiative. People in these areas mainly depend on cattle breeding for their livelihoods and their current local development plans provide a good basis for integration of environmental priorities and poverty issues.
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Additional information:
PEI is a UNDP/UNEP joint initiative to strengthen capacities for integration of environment and poverty linkages into national and sub-national planning and budgeting process through the provision of financial and technical support.
Regional Poverty and Environment Initiative was launched in 2008 in Bratislava, which was attended by high-level delegation from Kyrgyzstan who told about the country capacities and arguments for inclusion of the Kyrgyzstan as a pilot country. As a result of the selection process a decision was made on initiating of full-fledged programs in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In the end of 2010 Bishkek hosted a meeting of stakeholders, which approved the initiative and provided specific recommendations for finalization of a detailed work plan.
visit the following site: http://www.unpei.org
According to the data of the National Statistics Committee the headcount rate of poverty in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2010 reached 33.7 percent of population. The highest poverty level poverty was registered in Naryn Province – 53,5 %. The forthcoming three years the country defined its development course in the Mid -term Development Programme for 2012 – 2014. It includes the Government’s Action Plan on socio-economic Development taking into account environmental security issues. Thus, in the framework of these activities the measures on conservation and rational nature use will be implemented.
