Out of 7.1 million population of Tajikistan 73% live in rural areas. It is estimated that over 1 million people in Tajikistan, primarily in rural areas, have little or no access to an adequate energy supply, particularly during the winter. Today over 95% of Tajikistan’s power generation capacity is based on hydro electricity. However, the current infrastructure is old and no significant investments have been made in the sector over the past 20 years. Almost every winter the country is faced with an energy crisis and is dependent on unreliable electricity imports from neighbouring countries. The absence of a reliable electricity supply has forced large parts of the rural population to increasingly turn to the burning of conventional biomass and fossil fuels to meet their energy needs. The related cutting of forests, loss of biodiversity, degradation of soils, and deterioration of indoor air quality, is putting further pressure on rural communities in Tajikistan, which are already among the poorest in the world. At the same time, the attempts to develop significant income-generating activities and to raise living standards in rural communities have largely failed in part due to the absence of a reliable electricity supply.

The project “Demonstrating Local Responses to Combating Land Degradation and Improving Sustainable Land Management in SW Tajikistan” is a 4 year “demonstration” project being implemented in 4 target jamoats in S.W. Khatlon Oblast (Shaartuz, Kabodion, Jilikul and Kumsangir Dirsticts). The project is mainly financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and falls under their Operational Programme for Land Degradation. It is directly executed by UNDP through the Shaartuz Area Office of the UNDP Communities Programme.
The total project is valued at USD 2.53 Million of which about 40% is “in-kind” co-financing from government, UNDP Communities Programme, Winrock International (USAID), CARE, and JRC’s. GEF and UNDP are the only cash financer (USD 975,000 and USD 200,000 respectively). The total cash budget is therefore USD 1.175 million.
The objective of the project is “to demonstrate the potential to implement replicable Sustainable Land Management initiatives at the local level in Tajikistan and to build the capacity of local structures to do this”. Lessons and experience from this project are expected to feed directly into the Tajikistan National Framework Programme for Land Management within the umbrella Asian Development Bank / GEF Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM).

The UNDP/GEF project “Environmental Learning and Stakeholder Involvement as Tools for Global Environmental Benefits and Poverty Reduction” was approved mid-2008. It is a three-year project and its official starting date is September 28, 2008. The implementing partner is the State Committee on Environment Protection. The Government Focal Point (FP) is Mr. Mahmadsharif Hakdodov from the Ministry of Energy and Industry of Tajikistan assigned to this position by the Committee on Environment Protection. The project has a GEF budget of USD 470,000 and co-financing commitments of USD 470,000. The main stakeholders are the State Committee on Environment Protection, Ministry of Education and the Jamoats (4) in the Gissar Region.

The aim of this project is to expand Tajikistan’s capacity to generate global environmental benefits through educating and involving diverse stakeholders in addressing Rio Convention themes at national and local levels. The objective is to strengthen capacity to use environmental learning and stakeholder involvement as tools to address natural resource management issues as part of poverty reduction. This objective will be reached through three main outcomes: (i) Enhanced legal, policy, institutional and strategic frameworks to strengthen environmental education/learning and stakeholder involvement as natural resource management tools; (ii) Improved capacity of government and civil society to integrate environmental learning and stakeholder involvement into programmes and projects; and (iii) Enhanced capacity of local government and community organizations to use community environmental learning and involvement as tools for natural resource management and poverty reduction.
 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a global partnership among 178 countries, international institutions, NGOs, and the private sector that aims to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives.
The GEF was established in 1991 and serves as an independent financial mechanism to assist countries in fulfilling their obligations under the following Conventions they have signed and ratified: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The GEF’s mission is the protection of the global environment with a particular purpose: achievement of global environmental benefits through funding programs and projects in the following six focal areas: biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants. GEF projects are managed by GEF Implementing Agencies: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank (WB). For more details, use link on brief information, reference manual and SGP thematic areas

SGP has announced among interested organisations to participate in forthcoming tender for grants. For those interested, proposal form should be filled in and submitted no later than February 15, 2010.