Africa

The stonemasons died while carrying out repairs on the Unesco World Heritage site in Tunisia.

An overcrowded boat is believed to have been swamped by high waves after leaving the city of Zuwara.

The church set up to welcome LGBT worshippers in a country that is growing more homophobic.

Jacob Zuma says it would be a betrayal to campaign for Cyril Ramaphosa and has launched a new party.

A priest remembers how a queer-affirming church in Kenya changed his life and his calling to priesthood.

Ndinda says her mother smuggled a wedding ring from Nottinghamshire to Kenya by baking it into a cake.

As usual, DR Congo's election period has brought a burst of political music by huge stars.

Research associate, Tania Eulalia Martínez Cruz from Oaxaca, Mexico shows how intercropping assists communities remain self-sufficient. Credit: Conrado Perez/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Dec 15 2023 (IPS)

The world is not on track to end hunger and poverty as a future of growing food insecurity and climate challenges beckon. Small-scale farmers are the backbone of food production, producing one-third of the world’s food and up to 70 percent of the food consumed in Africa and Asia, yet they are often cut off from the services they need to pull themselves out of poverty and food insecurity.

As small-scale farmers and communities in rural areas—where 80 percent of the world’s poorest live—edge even closer to the epicenter of climate-induced disasters, there is an urgent need for world leaders to increase funding to provide much-needed tools for rural communities to adapt to and mitigate these challenges.

To address these challenges, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) received record-breaking pledges in support of its largest replenishment ever, putting the organization on track to positively impact the lives of millions of rural people across the globe.

“This is a clear sign of the confidence member states have in IFAD and the importance they place on our ability to deliver results and impact through targeted investments that transform agriculture, rural economies, and food systems. They understand that investing in rural people and small-scale producers, who produce one-third of the world’s food and up to 70 percent of the food in low- and middle-income countries, is the only path to a food-secure future,” said Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, following the pledging session in Paris.

IFAD is on track to receive a record replenishment as contributions increase substantially from both big and smaller nations. Photo: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

The fourth replenishment session, which Angola and France hosted in Paris, saw an increase in pledges. IFAD is both a UN organization and an International Financial Institution (IFI), working in remote rural areas where poverty and hunger are at their deepest, so that rural populations are not left behind and are equipped to lift themselves out of poverty.

A replenishment session is the process by which IFAD mobilizes its core resources—an exercise in accountability by which IFAD reports to its Member States on its strategy, reform, and performance, usually at the mid-term of the previous replenishment period.

To date, 48 Member States have pledged USD 1.076 billion to replenish their core resources. Ten countries have increased by more than 50 percent from their previous contribution, and 31 countries have committed to their highest contribution ever, marking a record level of financing achieved for IFAD’s 2025–2027 programme of work.

IFAD launched its 13th replenishment in February 2023, calling for increased investments in small-scale farmers and rural people across developing countries. Every three years, member states replenish IFAD’s resources. The consultation culminated in a pledging session in Paris. Fundraising will then continue in 2024. Typically, over 100 countries contribute to IFAD’s replenishments, making it the most widely supported of all the major IFI replenishments.

“I am humbled by the positive momentum from today’s session and confident that IFAD’s ambitious call to mobilize USD 2 billion in new funding to support a USD 10 billion programme of work impacting over 100 million rural people will be achieved in the coming months,” said Lario.

To address today’s complex challenges facing rural communities, IFAD urged world leaders to increase rural investments. IFAD’s Member States have demonstrated their record-breaking support and IFAD’s pivotal role in revitalizing the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals through investing in rural people.

“We rely on IFAD to ensure the resilience we seek to build, taking into account climate change and all other factors that hinder our development,” said Carmen do Sacramento Neto, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Angola, at the opening of the session.

“There has been an improvement in the living conditions of rural and fishing populations where the IFAD project was implemented, and it has had a significant impact. We announce that Angola will maintain its contribution and increase it in the coming years as a clear sign of our commitment.”

“With four in five of the world’s poorest people living in rural areas, the road to a prosperous, resilient, and food-secure future runs through rural communities. As multiple crises converge, rural people need us to invest in them more than ever before. As countries scramble to respond to unforeseen crises, development budgets are stretched, making the right investments is urgent and critical.”

Eunice Mwape is 26 and the mother of four children. She used to travel far to the garden because there was not enough water near her village of Shatubi. Now, thanks to the IFAD-sponsored project E-SLIP, Eunice has water close to her house. Credit: IFAD

Collaborating with member states, IFAD invests in rural development and across food systems to help small-scale farmers produce more food in greater variety, access markets, apply new technologies, and adapt to climate change. IFAD ensures that member state contributions reach those who need them the most, with 45 percent of total concessional financing going to low-income countries and at least 30 percent of core resources dedicated to fragile situations.

Pledging funds towards SDGs 1 and 2 today means spending less on development tomorrow. For every USD 1 spent on resilience, it now saves up to USD 10 in emergency aid in the future, not to mention avoiding hardship for millions of people the world over. IFAD’s work achieves measurable impact.

Between 2019 and 2021, IFAD’s investments improved the incomes of 77.4 million rural people, while 62 million rural people increased their production, and 64 million rural people improved their access to markets, enabling them to sell their production.

Additionally, thanks to improved agricultural practices, access to technical assistance and credit, as well as the diversification of their income sources, IFAD assisted 38 million people in building their resilience, which is a measure of their capacity to recover from climatic and non-climatic shocks.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Felix Tshisekedi came to power in 2019 with a huge vision - what has he achieved?

Martin Fayulu has never given up saying he won in 2018 - he is now back to claim his prize.

Football club owner Moïse Katumbi is one of the Democratic Republic of Congo's richest men.

Credit: WRF
 
The resounding consensus of the recent World Resources Forum Conference: in order to achieve wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries, humanity needs to rethink how it values resources.

By Mathias Schluep
ST. GALLEN, Switzerland, Dec 15 2023 (IPS)

While the COP28 presidency celebrated an “historic deal” to transition away from fossil fuels, we must remind ourselves that the future wellbeing of human societies in a livable planet depends on more than that.

Keeping fossil fuels in the ground is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. To achieve the ultimate goal, we need to fundamentally rethink the value of natural resources and reassess their link to long-term human wellbeing.

Having a world climate conference with a tunnel vision on fossil fuels does not help us in that.

At stake is the long-term ability of human societies to provide for wellbeing, especially in light of a growing global population and widening inequalities. Over the past decades, resource use has significantly improved living standards for many, particularly in high-income countries, but this now comes at an unprecedented cost to the environment and human health.

According to the UN International Resource Panel, today resource extraction and processing are responsible for 90% of biodiversity loss and water stress, 50% of carbon emissions and 1/3 of air pollution health impacts.

The use of resources has more than tripled since 1970 and, if current trends continue, global material consumption is predicted to double again by 2060. This growth is especially prominent for metals and non-metallic minerals, which are the backbone of major industries and the enablers of the energy and digital transitions.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that global demand for critical raw materials will quadruple by 2040 – in the case of lithium, demand is expected to increase by a factor of 42.

Resources are the bridge between economic productivity and ecological balance. A bridge that, in most policy and governance frameworks, has often remained invisible. The main reason for this lies in an economic model not valuing natural resources.

Economists have severely downplayed the dependence of economic activity on resources and the natural systems that generate them. This has contributed to overexploitation, environmental degradation and the exacerbation of global challenges, such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

Distorted economic incentives and market signals are now ubiquitous, such as in the well-known cases of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest or the depletion of fish stocks due to overfishing. Others are less discussed, especially in relation to the mining sector, which will become the engine of the global economy.

If not responsibly managed, mining activities can lead to soil erosion, habitat destruction and contamination of water sources, impacting the local ecosystems and nearby communities who depend on those ecosystems.

A prominent example is the handling of mining waste and mining tailings, the residue remaining after mineral processing. Recent research reveals that a third of the world’s mine tailings facilities are located within or near protected areas, posing a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystem integrity in the event of facility failures or accidents.

Unfortunately, these accidents are not as uncommon as one may think. The disaster of the Brumadinho (Brazil) tailings storage facility in 2019 unleashed a toxic tidal wave of around 12 million cubic meters, which killed 270 people and destroyed a significant area of the Atlantic forest and a protected area downstream.

Economic models are human-made and can be changed. If we are serious about sustainability and long-term human wellbeing, they must be transformed to better account for the unreplaceable value that natural resources provide.

This shift, advocated for by participants at the World Resources Forum 2023, requires acknowledging the interconnectedness of economic, ecological and social systems, underpinning the need for new accounting models to integrate ecological and social indicators.

Profound changes need to permeate climate negotiations and international policies, if future COPs are to play a meaningful role in preserving life on this planet. This year we witnessed once again how climate change discussions tend to overlook the central role played by the excessive and irresponsible use of resources, and apply a tunnel vision focused on CO2 emissions which are a key aspect to tackle, but essentially a symptom of a more profound ill.

The cure goes through integrating natural resource management in the institutional fabric and extending the relevant policy options beyond the prevailing energy supply. Ecological health and human wellbeing are interlinked objectives which call for reassessing our values and rethinking how we use natural resources.

Mathias Schluep is Managing Director World Resources Forum

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The Secretariat building in New York City, where staff of the UN Secretariat carry out the day-to-day work. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 2023 (IPS)

Going back to the 1970s, thousands of UN staffers were given legal status opting for permanent residency in the US– after their retirement.

But that longstanding privilege now seems to be in jeopardy forcing retirees to return to their home countries uprooting their lives in the US.

The United States Immigration and Nationality Act has for long allowed long-serving UN staff members, who held the traditional G-4 visa status, and who met certain criteria, to apply for Legal Permanent Residency, also known as a “Green Card,” under the “Special Immigrant” category (EB-4), upon separation on retirement.

The UN’s Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance (DMSPC) last week sent an “urgent notice” to staffers that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has temporarily suspended accepting applications to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (I-485 form) under the “Special Immigrant” category (EB-4).

This development may affect the ability of staff members who hold G-4 visas to continue to reside in the United States following their separation from service on retirement.

The suspension may also affect recent retirees; children of current or retired staff members, as well as a surviving spouse, who have been planning to apply for Legal Permanent Residency under the “Special Immigrant” category.

The UN has advised staffers to seek legal advice from an immigration firm about their future status in the US.

Speaking off-the-record, a long-time UN staffer told IPS the programme is in jeopardy with no clear indication when it will resume or get resolved.

The reason is apparently a backlog of applications, but it may even be political, he said. ”You may never know”.

Basically, he said, it has been suspended because of some changes that came into effect early this year in the immigration laws –and also due to the existing backlog of applications.

“This means no priority processing for G4 visa holders from the UN. The situation is quite serious as it was taken by surprise many in the Secretariat”.

“We have been told that within 30-days, we have to leave the US upon separation unless the individual manages to change the status by going through an immigration lawyer. I don’t see it restored in the near future. A big disappointment and a mess to say the least.”

Most UN staffers who own apartments or house and property—and are on short notice– will have to dispose them before they leave the US while others with children in US colleges will have to make adjustments.

“It’s an absolute nightmare”, said one staffer whose retirement is due in February next year when he will be forced out of the US.

Meanwhile, In Geneva, which houses more than 40 international organizations, mostly affiliated to the United Nations such as the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), staffers apply for “resident permits” on their retirement.

After they have lived 5-10 years, including years spent at the UN, they are entitled to permanent residency leading to Swiss citizenship.

Currently, the US is home to over 9,000 staffers who work in the Secretariat and in UN agencies in New York, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN children’s agency UNICEF and UN Women– with some on retirement after living the US for over 30 to 40 years.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A selection of the best photos from the African continent and beyond.

Women and children in Afghan cities endure hours-long queues for a vital resource—water. Credit: Learning Together

By External Source
Dec 14 2023 (IPS)

According to United Nations statistics, nearly 80 percent of Afghan families lack access to sufficient water for their daily needs. Afghanistan, a landlocked country with limited water resources, is grappling with an exacerbated drought fueled by climate change, affecting the entire region.

In the western parts of Kabul, residents must endure lengthy queues, waiting for hours to secure the water they need.

To obtain drinking water, residents must travel considerable distances, enduring hours of waiting only to bring home a few barrels. Families designate someone to stand in line constantly, yet they still experience several days and nights without water

The situation has reached a critical point, exemplified by the district of Dasht-e-Barchi running out of water as temperatures rise. This crisis has persisted for months.

In the 13th district of Kabul city, the water company has suspended the water supply. Muhammad Ali and Juma, who have been living in the district for more than seven years, describe their plight as the worst they’ve experienced, emphasizing the absence of water and any communication from officials.

To obtain drinking water, residents must travel considerable distances, enduring hours of waiting only to bring home a few barrels. Families designate someone to stand in line constantly, yet they still experience several days and nights without water.

A private company that used to distribute water to people in exchange for money does not do it anymore. Residents say that there is no government water supply system in this area.

People can’t afford to dig their own wells. Therefore, they must wait for hours to get water from mosques and public distribution centers.

Groundwater levels in Kabul have dwindled significantly. In the Pole Khushk area, western Kabul, people wait from morning to evening for just one barrel of water, highlighting the severe impact of poverty and water scarcity on the city’s residents.

 

Water scarcity compounds the hardships of life in the Afghan capital, Kabul, adding to the misery of its residents. Credit: Learning Together

 

The Ministry of Energy and Water has plans to manage groundwater. The head of water program coordination, Rafiullah Stanakzai, says that there are several ongoing projects: the Kabul-Panjshir water canal project as well as the Shah Tut and the Shah Arous projects that supply water to Kabul. The work on these projects will begin after the technical team has reviewed them.

Officials attribute the decline in groundwater levels to population growth and excessive groundwater usage, underscoring the urgency of resolving the water crisis.

The water crisis needs a quick resolution. The Taliban government lacks a comprehensive plan to address the population’s needs for drinking water and essential necessities, casting a dark and hopeless shadow over the country plagued by drought.

A recent United Nations report highlights the gravity of the water crisis in Afghanistan:

• Around 8 out of every 10 Afghan people drink unsafe water. 
• 93% of children in Afghanistan (15.6 million children) live in areas of high, or extremely high, water vulnerability. 
• Nearly 4.2 million people practice open defecation. 
• 5 out of every 10 Afghan people don’t have access to at least basic sanitation facilities. 
• Over 6 out of every 10 Afghan people don’t have access to basic hygiene facilities. 
• Around 94% of schools across Afghanistan lack access to basic handwashing facilities. 
• Around 35% of healthcare facilities lack access to at least a basic drinking water supply.

Excerpt:

The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons

Credit: El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Dec 14 2023 (IPS)

It’s recently been reported that the two main protagonists of Sudan’s current conflict – leaders of the armed forces and militia at war since April – have agreed to face-to-face talks. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African body, announced the potential breakthrough – although Sudan’s foreign ministry has since claimed IGAD’s statement is inaccurate, creating further uncertainty.

There’s no question that an end to the violence is urgently needed. The conflict has created a humanitarian and human rights crisis. But the two leaders involved, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, have provided ample evidence to doubt whether they’re really interested in peace, or in accountability for atrocities.

Human rights crimes on all sides

Al-Burhan and Hemeti were partners in the October 2021 coup that ousted the civilian government that followed the 2019 revolution. Their conflict began at a crunch moment for a supposed return to civilian rule and amid a plan to absorb the RSF into the SAF. As much as anything, it appears to be a personal power battle between the two leaders.

The conflict initially played out on the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and its neighbouring city of Omdurman. It has since spread to other regions. Other rebel groups are active, some acting independently of the two main forces.

All sides are targeting civilians, with clear evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed. Over 12,190 people have been killed since the conflict began. The UN also estimates that 6.6 million people have now been displaced, the world’s highest number of displaced people.

The conflict has been brought to Darfur, the site of a genocide against local ethnic groups committed by the RSF and other Arab militias that began in 2003. Twenty years on, people are again being killed solely because of their ethnicity. The RSF now controls much of the region. In November, in response to the RSF’s ethnic cleansing, key Darfur militia groups joined the SAF’s side, signalling a further escalation of conflict.

The chaos of conflict has caused a cholera outbreak, with the health system collapsing and medical workers under attack. The World Food Programme has recently warned of a deepening hunger crisis.

In Chad, a low-income country home to around a million displaced people before the conflict began, refugee centres are struggling to cope with arrivals from Sudan and people live in crowded and insanitary conditions, exposed to continuing insecurity.

Humanitarian workers are being targeted. In December, two people were killed in an attack on a Red Cross convoy in Khartoum. Journalists are also being targeted, making it harder to get accurate and independent news from the ground. In Khartoum, the RSF has turned media buildings into detention centres.

And yet the response from the international community has been wholly inadequate. Recently the UN announced it had received only 38.6 per cent of the US$2.6 billion needed for humanitarian response in 2023. It’s only been able to help a fraction of those in need.

In another blow, at the start of December, the mandate of the UN Integrated Assistance Mission in Sudan was terminated at the request of the SAF-led government. Its job had been to support a democratic transition. The move offered a troubling sign that the government wants less rather than more international oversight.

A history of wishful thinking

With other conflicts dominating global headlines – first Ukraine, now Gaza – the world isn’t paying attention. But that doesn’t mean states have stopped taking sides. Sudan’s size, mineral wealth and geographical position give it strategic significance. Foreign states have long made self-interested calculations. Before the conflict, most states, as well as the UN, placed faith in the military as a source of stability. With that idea blown, states are now deciding which side is their best bet.

The United Arab Emirates is reportedly supplying arms to the RSF, and recently several of its diplomats were expelled by the foreign ministry. Russia is also on the RSF’s side. Both countries have an interest in Sudan’s gold. On the other side, Egypt has always been strongly behind the military establishment and the USA is said to be sliding towards the SAF as the perceived lesser of two evils.

Even when apparently well-intentioned, states and international organisations have consistently been guilty of wishful thinking. Before the conflict they put their faith in the promises of a military-led transition plan. Every process attempted since the coup has only further empowered the leaders now at war.

Need to enable civil society

It’s time Sudan’s civil society was heard and enabled to help pave the road to peace.

Sudan’s civil society is complex and layered. There’s an elite tier that broadly backed the supposedly transitional administration that emerged after the coup. There are established civil society organisations that work to provide essential services and advocate for rights. But the biggest source of opposition to armed rule has come from resistance committees: informal neighbourhood-level groups that played a crucial role in the 2019 revolution.

The committees are democratic and make decisions by consensus. They call for civilian rule and reject the calculations of the outside world about which form of military government can best guarantee stability, which for the resistance committees means continuing oppression. They’ve also become a key source of humanitarian response, including by providing food, water and healthcare.

Diverse resistance committees have worked together to develop a plan for transition to democracy. But the outside world seems perplexed, struggling to engage with a leaderless movement and rejecting demands for democratic civilian rule as somehow too ambitious.

But everything else has failed. There should be no route for either of the warring military leaders to retain power. When peace comes, so must accountability for human rights crimes. And neither will materialise unless democracy does – which means an enabled and empowered civil society.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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Celebrating the end of COP28, which ended with an agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. Credit: UNFCCC

By Cecilia Russell
DUBAI, Dec 14 2023 (IPS)

While the outcomes of COP28 are being hotly debated in both the scientific and social justice arenas, the climate conference has taken an unprecedented step forward toward a just transition, says Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at the Open Society Foundations.

Making some preliminary remarks a day after the climate conference ended, she said: “COP28 ends like it started: imperfect, yet an important and unprecedented step forward in our “course correction” for a just transition towards resilient and greener economies.”

The UN decision acknowledged the need for the decline of coal, oil, and gas for the first time in an agreement that talks about transitioning out of fossil fuels. It will also be known for operationalizing the Loss and Damages Fund, even if the funding falls far below the requirements for climate-stressed countries and communities.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell acknowledged these contractions in his final speech.

“While we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end,” Stiell said.

He also noted that climate finance, which he said was a great enabler of climate action, fell short of the trillions needed to support developing countries with clean energy transitions and adaptation efforts.

He urged ordinary people everywhere to not relent in their demands for a climate-just world.

“In the crucial years ahead, your voices and determination will be more important than ever. I urge you never to relent. We are still in this race. We will be with you every single step of the way.”

Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations. Credit: TJ Kirkpatrick, Open Society Foundations

Dagnet believes that COP28 is the start of a new era in climate justice.

“This is not an end; rather, just the beginning of an implementation journey that we know is hard but can be so positively transformative, and just if we manage to mobilize, in an equitable manner, all hands-on deck. A climate-just journey and outcome require vigilance, creativity, and accountability; stronger solidarity and engagement at all levels; promoting human rights; and shared prosperity for all,” she says.

This COP, Danget says, laid bare the issues with the Paris Agreement, especially with the just transition.

“More specifically, this COP exposed all the contradictions and challenges faced when implementing the promises of the Paris Agreement, especially a managed, equitable transition away from fossil fuels and the sustained mobilization, alignment, and access to financial flows domestically and internationally to decarbonize and build resilience,” Dagnet says. ”

While some signals got clearer with more substantive commitments, challenges remain, however, in how the just and equitable transition is sequenced.

“Inclusive processes matter to foster shared prosperity and benefits throughout the journey, together with adequate safeguards to minimize unintended adverse impacts of climate-related measures and technologies and to protect frontline and marginalized communities.

“Similarly, the just operationalization and continued capitalization of the Loss and Damage Fund will require vigilance, effective guidance, and mechanisms to make sure commensurate funding is actually mobilized and reaches the communities that need it the most in a timely manner. Adequate mobilization of finance for adaptation by the donor community is also essential to tackle losses and damages with dignity. We are happy that a dozen of them committed to join OSF efforts in this regard.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ousmane Sonko's repeated arrests have sparked deadly unrest in one of West Africa's most stable democracies.

It was initially reported that Joshua Mollel had been taken hostage by Hamas, along with a colleague.

Credit: EBRD

By Anton Usov
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Dec 14 2023 (IPS)

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is addressing the issue of youth entrepreneurship and employment in Central Asia by launching a seven-year €200 million (US$ 218 million) Youth in Business (YiB) programme.

The programme is designed to provide better access to finance and relevant training to young entrepreneurs in the region, where up to one third of the population is aged between 18 and 34 years.

The Youth in Business programme in Central Asia (YiB CA) will target micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) led or owned by young individuals under the age of 35.

It will consist of up to €200 million for on-lending to up to 20 partner financial institutions in Central Asia and Mongolia; targeted non-financial services for eligible small businesses will be provided by the Bank’s Advice for Small Businesses programme to help develop their entrepreneurial skills through training, advisory services and networking opportunities.

The EBRD’s investment will be complemented by a package of up to €30 million consisting of grants and concessional co-financing to stimulate inclusive lending and youth entrepreneurship.

It is expected that the first loan agreements under the YiB CA will include: a loan of up to US$ 10 million to Uzbekistan’s largest private bank Hamkorbank, a loan of up to US$ 8 million to Shinhan Bank Kazakhstan, a loan of up to US$ 4 million to Mongolia’s leading micro lender Transcapital, and a loan of up to US$ 2 million to Kazakhstan-based microfinancial organisation Arnur Credit.

A market assessment conducted by the EBRD in the region reveals that while many young people across Central Asia have a strong entrepreneurial mindset, very few have access to equal economic opportunities. Only around 10 per cent of them have access to necessary training and professional expertise.

This is very important for Central Asia, where MSMEs account for almost half of total employment and contribute to almost 40 per cent of regional GDP.

Grant support and concessional finance to the programme is provided by the government of Kazakhstan, the Small Business Impact Fund and the European Union.

The EBRD is a leading institutional investor in Central Asia. It has to date provided close to €19 billion through more than 1,000 projects.

Anton Usov is EBRD Chief Spokesman for Central Asia and Mongolia

IPS UN Bureau

 

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