As economic development is at the heart of the University of Central Asia’s (UCA) overall strategy, the UCA has been supporting the transformation of its undergraduate campus towns in Khorog (Tajikistan) and Naryn (Kyrgyzstan) into “university towns”.
AKDN and UCA are partnering with the Naryn Town Municipality to work on the master plan for the Naryn area.
The Aga Khan Foundation is co-designing new solutions and adapting its current education programming with local communities, educators, families and learners worldwide.
The aim of this UKAID-funded project, implemented by Aga Khan Foundation, is to reduce conflicts related to the use and management of natural resources such as irrigation water and pastures in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as in cross-border areas between both countries.
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.
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.
Onno Ruhl is the first General Manager of the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH), which was created in 2016 to address the increasing threat posed by natural disasters and climate change. The agency works to ensure that communities are as safe as possible from the effects of natural disasters, that residents who live in high-risk areas are able to cope in terms of preparedness and response, and that they have access to social and financial services that lead to greater opportunity and a better quality of life.
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.