While the government has pledged support for the development of civil society organisations (CSOs), Tajikistan faces challenges with the legal enabling environment for non-governmental organisations, with implications for the financial sustainability of the non-profit sector. Meanwhile, the decreasing number of young adults engaged within civil society may undermine CSOs’ role in supporting Tajikistan to realise goals within its National Development Strategy. There is need to build the organisational and technical capacity of CSOs to improve their productivity and enhance their impact, while supporting the public’s understanding of civil society’s role in developing and advancing concepts of national unity, social cohesion and civic engagement.
The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) aims to develop resilient, values-based civil societies, which demonstrate greater competency, legitimacy, accountability, and sustainability. Our experience in grassroots poverty alleviation has indicates that community-based civil society structures are the foundations of development. The Foundation achieves this by enhancing capacities for collective action, strengthening values-based societies, strengthening transparency and accountability, and improving resources, services and economic assets. Since 1993, AKF has engaged over 1,900 village organisations to empower women, men and youth to meaningfully participate in local decision-making processes.
Good governance
AKF establishes, strengthens, and partners with community-based civil society organisations (CSOs) representing over 1.4 million rural constituents in governance, education, health, emergency management, water and sanitation, and natural resource management sectors. Through our engagement with CSOs, The Foundation supports the implementation of inclusive, efficient, transparent, and accountable governance of development activities. AKF leverages its organisational capacity assessment and organisational performance index tools to build the capacity of these grassroots civil society entities to build trust, accountability and self-reliance.
Enabling environment
In 2017, AKF supported the country’s first-ever Parliamentary Committee focused on the role of civil society in realising goals outlined in the National Development Strategy of Tajikistan for 2015 – 2030, and related UN Sustainable Development Goals. In 2019, it advanced the hearing recommendations for closer engagement between civil society and government by facilitating the fifth national civil society forum, attended by more than 40 Public Organisations across the country, including representatives from the Presidential Office, National Parliament, Ministry of Justice, Tax Committee, donors and intergovernmental agencies. The resultant joint resolution was shared with the Presidential Office and relevant Ministries to create an enabling environmental for the development of civil society in Tajikistan.
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Policy advocacy
In 2020, AKF and the Committee on the Local Development of the Parliament of Tajikistan facilitated policy discussions on the Public Self Initiative Bodies Law of the Republic of Tajikistan (PSIB). The meeting brought together representatives of mahalla committees, public organisations, sub-districts and districts heads, town and regional government, and members of the national parliament. During the meeting, participants shared their experiences with the implementation of the PSIB law at the mahalla committee level. Challenges, such as the consistency of the PSIB law with the Law on Public Associations, communities’ ownership over community resources, and strengthening mahalla committees by granting them more authority were discussed. After this meeting, the participants presented recommendations for improvement of the PSIB law to National Parliament, while members of parliament presented possible amendments to the law.
Civil engagement
AKF empowers all segments of the community – women, men, youth, and the elderly – to participate meaningfully in local decision-making processes. AKF supports village development planning workshops for communities to identify their key priorities through a participatory process involving the most marginalised members of communities.
Connecting supply and demand
AKF supports inclusive social and economic development across the country by linking priorities identified through participatory village development planning processes to district and regional development plans, thereby connecting governance supply and demand while aligning public resources around community priorities and needs. This alignment has enabled the implementation of over 3,600 micro-projects since 2014 in partnership with civil society and local authorities.
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Innovation and acceleration
To continuously improve upon existing and forthcoming programmes, AKF has capacitated its staff on human centred design through its Accelerate Impact initiative. Human centred design is an innovative approach to problem solving that fosters the understanding of context and identifies local solutions in a creative way by prototyping and testing ideas with local communities.
