Locations
UNDP Kazakhstan in 2023
SNAPSHOT OF 2023
In 2023, UNDP Kazakhstan focused on maintaining the country’s growth trajectory by diversifying the economy, modernizing institutions, reducing inequalities, and sustainably managing natural resources by leveraging innovation, embedding digital into all aspects of development work, and forging partnerships to catalyze impact. Our approach was pragmatic, considering both immediate needs and long-term goals, framed by the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNDP Kazakhstan supported the Government in launching the Digital Family Card, an innovative govtech solution which improves access to social support for vulnerable population. UNDP Kazakhstan helped to digitally transform the healthcare system to improve resilience and efficiency.
Our gender equality efforts have been shaped by strategic partnerships and programmes such as the ‘Women for Just Transition’ network and the Gender Seal for Public Institutions, which aims to integrate a gender perspective across sectors. In our pursuit of human rights, UNDP Kazakhstan has conducted a comprehensive mapping exercise in the business sector and advocated for the rights of persons with disabilities to ensure that inclusion is at the centre of the development strategy. Regional development and institutional strengthening were also a focus, with initiatives to integrate sustainable development goals into local governance and public policy. Strategic work with the Kazakh Parliament, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Economy has supported efforts to localize the SDGs in the country. UNDP Kazakhstan prioritized green initiatives and contributed to sustainable development through renewable energy projects and financial mechanisms that support the low carbon growth path.
Major Events
Transformative political and governmental changes
Kazakhstan underwent transformative changes catalyzed by the tragic 2022 January events. Snap parliamentary elections for the lower chamber of parliament (Mazhilis) and local councils (maslikhats) were held on 19 March 2023. While concern about citizens’ full political participation persisted, OSCE observers noted that recent reforms increased voter choice during the election.
The government structure also went through notable changes with the replacement of eight ministers and the establishment of two ministries – the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Water.
Kazakhstan conducted direct elections for akims (mayors) of 42 districts and three cities of regional significance in November. This pilot initiative, covering 17 regions, marked the first instance of such elections in the country’s history.
Human Rights and Rule of law
Significant momentum to enhance human rights protection was created through the Presidential Decree endorsing an Action Plan on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Kazakhstan in December.
The Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan commenced operations on 1 January 2023. This critical development empowers citizens to directly challenge norms they perceive as contradictory to the principles of the national Constitution. In its first eight months, the court received approximately 4,000 citizen appeals.
Economy
Despite challenging factors such as inflationary pressure, change of international logistics chains, war in Ukraine, sanctions confrontation – Kazakhstan has ended 2023 with economic growth of 4.9 percent in 2023 (3.3 percent in 2022).
Low carbon development path:
The Strategy on Achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2060 was finally adopted in February 2023, which made Kazakhstan the first Central Asian country with a long-term vision for carbon neutrality. The private sector investment is crucial for this transition that requires US$610 billion investment.
Throughout the year, Kazakhstan demonstrated the firm commitment to environmental and climate agenda. This includes the announcement of co-chairing the inaugural One Water Summit at UNGA in 2024 with France during COP28.
Energy
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced plans for a national referendum to decide on the construction of a nuclear power plant, a topic of intense public debate. The date for the referendum has yet to be determined.
Emergencies
In 2023, Kazakhstan faced a series of significant emergencies, including forest fires and a major mining facility accident. These incidents highlighted critical challenges in natural resource management and underscored deficiencies in the country's energy infrastructure.
Major Challenges
Full scale roll out of the regional development programme remains a challenge. While the government is set to transfer the first tranche of $ 1.7 million in 2024, the remaining amount under the signed $30 million cost-sharing agreement for financing the CPD 2021-2025 is still pending.
Availability and quality of data on social services provision at regional level remains a challenge for related programmatic initiatives.
Economic conditions such as increased base rates led to a decrease in the attractiveness of green projects and green financing. Decreasing share of loans for SMEs in the total business loan portfolio prevents SMEs from conducting green projects with financial stability, if this trend continues green projects will not be financially viable without support measures such as subsidies and/or guarantees. Lack of knowledge and necessary experience with financial institutions among potentially interested SME owners is another challenge to scaling up investments in the biofuel industry.
Low level of gender awareness, commitment, and capacity to promote gender mainstreaming in policies among government partners continues to be a challenge for programmatic expansion.
Delays in delivering projects due to various factors when coordinating with the government partners such as delays in reviewing reports, hesitance to make major changes in the system, delays due to internal procedures, prolonged approval procedures/processes, frequent changes of senior management, different interests and priorities of the stakeholders, etc.
The absence of anticipated funding within the government cost-sharing agreement for the current CPD posed a significant challenge for UNDP Kazakhstan in 2023. In response to the funding constraints, UNDP Kazakhstan had to revise its initial delivery target, adjusting it to $14 million.
In addition to the external UNBOA audit held in January, UNDP Kazakhstan also went through the internal OAI audit in May 2023. The unsatisfactory outcomes of the latter made the office revisit existing approaches to programme, project and operational processes and procedures, which also affected implementation and resource mobilization.
UNDP Kazakhstan continued to experience significant constraints with implementation of ‘Attracting Investors in the Field of Energy Efficiency’ project due to the lack of flexible policies at the corporate level and clear guidance on the process.
Challenges in mobilizing resources from the private sector, particularly the fossil fuel industry, emerged as a significant setback due to lack of approval by PSDD committee and lengthy due diligence procedures.
Due to the lack of uncommitted funds UNDP Kazakhstan faced constraints in piloting several initiatives and leveraging more funding.
Implementation of Carbon Neutrality Strategy is not progressing therefore remains just at the level of document
Resource Mobilization
In 2023 UNDP Kazakhstan has exceeded it’s resource mobilization target by 21 percent ($15.6 million vs 12,9 million) with major donors being the Government of Kazakhstan, the GEF, the European Union and Japan.
Impacting people and nature
Addressing social vulnerabilities and inequalities
In 2023, the major accomplishment by UNDP Kazakhstan is the launching of the Digital Family Card, an innovative solution developed with UNDP participation to ensure equal access of the population to state support programmes, which has been embedded into the new Social Code.
UNDP carried first National Baseline Assessment of human rights in the business sector, informing the forthcoming National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.
In support of Kazakhstan's effort to safeguard and advance the rights of individuals with disabilities, UNDP Kazakhstan established the Institute for Advisors on Disabilities, which is a pilot initiative for a professional rehabilitation center in Astana and developed training apartments utilizing self-guided living technologies to facilitate the social adaptation of young individuals with developmental disabilities.
In the healthcare sector, UNDP Kazakhstan collaborated with the Government in the digital transformation of the healthcare sector to enhance the resilience of health services on a systemic level. Continuous efforts to streamline the procurement of high-quality medicines benefited approximately 8,100 patients by ensuring access to life-saving medications, and it also saved $350,000 of the State Budget by successfully securing medicines below the Ministry of Healthcare's specified limits.
Rebuilding public trust through more accountable institutions, free of corruption
UNDP together with the SDG secretariat (under the Economic Research Institute) worked in the pilot regions (Abay, Jetisu, Ulytau and Kyzylorda) to review their strategic plans to assess the level of integration of SDGs and provided capacity building workshops. To support this work, Ministry of National Economy together with UNDP created a standing commission on localization, which will work with every region of the country.
UNDP Kazakhstan made significant accomplishments in supporting the government to align its policies with SDGs through:
Initiating collaboration with the Ministry of Finance to amend and enhance the existing Unified Budget Classification to better align public expenditures with SDGs
Playing a pivotal role in supporting the creation of a Parliamentary Commission to monitor the implementation of SDGs in Kazakhstan
Developing the SDG Financing Dashboard for the country of Central Asiato enhance transparency and facilitate civil society participation
UNDP supported Kazakhstan's reform of local self-governance. In collaboration with the Government, UNDP boosted skills of 2,500 akims for local governance reforms, focusing on expanding local government functions and mechanisms for direct financing of local budgets.
UNDP Kazakhstan has made significant efforts in sustainable and clean energy in 2023, including:
Supporting the work on the Energy Efficiency Concept and legislative improvements.
Commissioning of four renewable energy projects in collaboration with DAMU fund to benefit over 36,000 people with clean renewable energy.
Providing financial support for 17 projects through the NAMA initiative to offer efficient green energy solutions to various industries which reached 75,000 direct beneficiaries.
Successfully realised two pilot projects to showcase the viability of biofuel briquettes as a financially viable alternative to coal for achieving carbon-neutral heating in Kazakhstan.
UNDP Kazakhstan was also active in leveraging sustainable financing during 2023. As a result of UNDP's green finance interventions, sustainable bonds worth $142.6 million were placed on the Astana International Exchange in 2023. The debut issuance of green subsidized bonds under the National Entrepreneurship Development Project for 2021-2025 was placed in October 2023, which mobilised private investments of $6.6 million for the construction of a 48 MW wind farm.
In 2023 UNDP promoted ecosystem conservation through expanding Protected Areas and reserving over 1.65 million hectares. With development of new Management Plans that UNDP supported government funding has been steadily increasing from 8.6 billion tenge in 2018 to 32.2 billion tenge in 2023. UNDP also initiated the development of a new National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy that has been absent for almost 10 years.
In response to the catastrophic large-scale wildfire in the Semey region, UNDP Kazakhstan widened its scope of work from its existing cooperation in forest preservation by supporting the purchase of necessary equipment as a direct response and deploying a DRR Scoping Mission with UNDP IRH for assessment.
Fostering knowledge based economic growth
In collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Information UNDP hosted a high-level roundtable on the development of creative industries in the country. The roundtable was preceded by a series of regional expert meetings organized by the UNDP focusing on creative industries in the Kyzylorda and Abay regions, as well as in Almaty. These meetings included workshops on digital solutions in creative professions to boost sales, media positioning, and branding. The outcomes will be integrated into the work of UNDP Accelerator Lab and considered in the upcoming UNDP’s regional programme.
Promoting gender equality for development
UNDP Kazakhstan actively collaborated with key entities to include measures addressing gender-based violence, social issues, and human rights in business in the Action Plan for Human Rights which was endorsed by the President in December 2023.
Our Gender Seal for Public Institutions initiative, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Information, has been a flagship project, leading the ministry to seek further expansion of gender certification programs.
The launch of the ‘Women for Just Transition’ network marked a significant step in involving women in decision-making and clean energy access.
The successful completion of the Spotlight Initiative regional program for Central Asia heightened political awareness on gender-based violence through a multi-sectoral approach.
Despite challenges, the economic empowerment of Afghan women in Central Asia project made significant progress, with 27 Afghan women and girls graduating in Kazakhstan and securing opportunities, and 11 pursuing studies in Spain with the EU funding.
Key indicators
Flagship events
Astana International Forum
Critical global issues on climate change and tackling poverty and inequality were the focus of two panels hosted by UNDP Kazakhstan at the Astana International Forum. The first panel, “Turning a trickle into a flood: Financing the green transition,” discussed the need for increased investment in climate-friendly projects. The second, “Halfway there but far behind: Taking stock of the 2030 Agenda,” assessed progress made towards achieving the SDGs.
Furthermore, the UNDP has showcased a remarkable innovation at the AIF exhibition through a specially designed booth, presenting an interactive map of Kazakhstan of low-carbon projects initiated by the UNDP, which have been successfully implemented with the support of green financial instruments.
Astana Civil Service Hub Annual conference
On May 17-19 Astana Civil Service Hub (ACSH) held an annual conference with an overall theme “Meritocracy. Integrity. Innovation”. This Conference has marked 10th anniversary of the ACSH. During this period, the ACSH has grown into a global multilateral platform assisting governments of the region and beyond to excel in their public service transformation through partnership, capacity development, and evidence-based research pillar. Time has shown that the initially chosen demand- driven approach and flexibility do pay off. The relevance of these partnership modality is proved by the expanded geographical scope, comprising 43 participating countries and more than 80 institutional partners.
