University of Central Asia
Food and nutrition insecurity are emerging as major issues in mountainous regions, particularly in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in Tajikistan, where there are short growing seasons, severe climatic conditions at elevations above 2,000 metres, and limited availability of agriculture land. To address these challenges, the University of Central Asia’s (UCA) Mountain Societies Research Institute (MSRI), in collaboration with research institutions and development partners, has launched a research project on food systems.
Residents in the high Pamir region of Tajikistan have always depended on natural resources to sustain their livelihoods, primarily through nomadic herding practices that have developed over centuries.
In mountainous regions with limited agricultural lands, rugged topography, and large gradients, the preservation of agrobiodiversity and an appreciation of traditional knowledge about food systems are essential ingredients of a sustainable future. Therefore, the University of Central Asia’s Mountain Societies Research Institute has begun to engage in food systems research in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
Robin Higgins, from Nelson in Canada was in her fourth year of work as a counsellor at the University of Central Asia (UCA) in Khorog, Tajikistan when the university closed because of the pandemic. Now she’s teaching and counselling her students in their homes, online from Nelson. She says it has been a challenge for the UCA students to study and be counselled from their homes. She said because of a lack of social safety nets, many feel an urgent responsibility to get an education and a good job so they can care for their parents and siblings, now or in the future.
The University of Central Asia’s Mountain Societies Research Institute will work with the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) to develop a GEF SGP Country Strategy for Kyrgyzstan. The programme will focus on funding local community-led environmental projects within a given priority area. SGP plans to also review, analyse, and codify results to allow replication and scale up of best practices within the country, and in other parts of the world.
A dynamic group of undergraduate students at the University of Central Asia (UCA) in Naryn (Kyrgyzstan) and Khorog (Tajikistan) are actively raising awareness about ecological issues, and encouraging participation in environmentally sustainable practices.
In 2019, UCA’s Mountain Societies Research Institute, together with a group of researchers from Germany, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan launched the “Juniper Central Asia Project”. The two-year project has five areas of focus including socio-economic research, year-ring analysis, assessment of the distribution zones and the biomass of juniper forests through remote sensing, and the creation of models to describe dynamics of development and degradation of these forests.
Building on the progress achieved in 2018 by the University of Central Asia, much of the focus in 2019 was on streamlining the operational and academic framework of the University.
Covid-19 is usually seen as an obstacle, but at the University of Central Asia (UCA), it has accelerated the digital transformation of UCA and the region.
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