Sustainable Economic Development Programme, Components 1 (Private sector development in rural areas) and 2 (Microfinance and instruments for financing)

The programme focused on four areas of intervention: (1) Promotion of agricultural and off-farm production by building up services for agricultural production, processing and marketing; (2) Improved access to financial services; (3) Promotion of the potential for cross-border trade; (4) Support for evidence-based and dialogue-based economic policy planning. In these four areas, the aim was to build institutional capacities and the capabilities of partner organisations. A pro-poor impact was achieved by extending successful approaches via existing organisations to most rural regions. Innovations and the diversification of economic sectors were promoted to generate new development prospects.

Key activities can be seen in the agricultural extension system model of the TAGs, which could be further developed with a measurable impact on agricultural production in Tajikistan. The fruit and vegetable value chain approach with a focus on processing started yielding substantial increases in production and export volumes. This includes activities in food quality control and marketing and branding of these products. The energy-efficient housing production has been enhanced countrywide. In basically all regions of the country public-private dialogue platforms were established by at the same time improving the organizations of the private sector. This is a structural reform, which can lead to important practical improvements for the private sector.

The three level approach, i.e. working at micro, meso and macro level proved to be successful. The meso level is an important focus for enhancing the service providing business to offer development services in a long-run, particularly for agriculture, agricultural processing companies and non-agricultural production in rural areas. The service providers were trained on the job and the respective farms / companies (micro level) supported to increase income. The macro level activities supplemented the work at micro and meso level in order to support the selected economic sectors additionally through a more conducive business environment.

Beyond the contract volume for AFC mentioned, AFC manages around 10 mln Euro of the total GIZ budget for subsidies, grants and sub-contracting downstream partners. The entire FFPSD had a financial volume of 23 mln Euro for around 2.5 years.