Telling Our Story

Building the Capacity to Communicate
Kyrgyzstan

According to the World Health Organization and UNAIDS, Kyrgyzstan has one of the fastest growing rates of HIV infection in the world. With such a rapidly increasing epidemic, it is vital that patients feel comfortable going to their doctors for testing and treatment.

A Teenager Starts School thanks to USAID
Kyrgyzstan

Access to school for children in the forty new settlements outside of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is restricted by impoverishment and a lack of legal residency. Mamasabyt is one of the many children in this situation. At 13, he was illiterate and had never attended school because he needed to work in the bazaar to make money for his family. To add to his mother’s meager wages made selling bananas, Mamasabyt needed to earn about $4 per day, which he did by picking up and selling used boxes.

Kanybek Imankulov applies no-till land cultivation on his field.

Advanced Technologies Improve Farmers’ Lives
Kyrgyzstan

Kanybek Imankulov, a father of four, owns 45 hectares of non-irrigable land in Luxembourg village in northern Kyrgyzstan.  A farmer since 1995, Imankulov grows mostly wheat products – alfalfa, cereals and also corn – but has had unimpressive results.  His crop yield is between 2 and 2.5 tons per hectare due to difficulties finding proper equipment for tillage and harvesting.  Average crop yields per hectare should be around 4.0 metric tons per hectare.

Timely Support Brings High Profit to the Farmers
Kyrgyzstan

CHALLENGE    In 2010, a high proportion (over 60%) of cereal crops and sunflower were consumed on-farm for livestock feed and human consumption. For potatoes, the percentage was 37%, safflower 28% and sugar beet 9%. The low yield levels and productivity seriously reduced sale volumes for small farmers. Kyrgyzstan faced another potential shortfall in food production in 2011 due to the supply disruptions and cost increases of yield-enhancing agro-inputs, including high-quality seeds in 2010.

INITIATIVE   The U.S.

Improving the Electoral Process by Simplification
Kyrgyzstan

 

When it comes to running elections keeping it simple is usually the best course of action. Over the course of 16 years in Kyrgyzstan, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) has continuously advocated for a simplification of election management procedures. The need for simplification rests largely on the fact that each national election requires the recruitment and training of over 20,000 election officials; high turnover and frequent legal changes necessitate large-scale training in preparation of every electoral event.

Learning Critical Thinking, Changing the Future
Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan has a disproportionally large population of young people who were born following the break-up of the former Soviet Union.  They have grown up in a state that, while democratic in principle, has been plagued by corruption. Young people, who may value democratic principles in theory, understandably become disillusioned by the reality in which they live.  Ways to counter these experiences include offering an example of what it looks like when you are a civically engaged, motivated individual in a country where political and administrative systems work.

Need for an Upgrade
Kyrgyzstan

 

Widespread looting in April 2010 crippled Kyrgyzstan’s state bodies, including the country’s parliament.

USAID Sees Major Achievement in the Passport Simplification Process
Kyrgyzstan

The State Registration Service of the Kyrgyz Republic has reduced the list of documents required for a national passport, marking an important milestone USAID’s efforts to simplify the issuance of passports in Kyrgyzstan.

The previous law prescribed a complex, expensive, and time-consuming process for acquiring a Kyrgyz passport.  Kyrgyz citizens spent a significant amount of time gathering up to 13 mandatory supporting documents and then waited in slow moving lines to apply for and receive passports.

Giving Up Drug Abuse for Good
Kyrgyzstan

“I am a drug user with 20 years of experience injecting drugs. Several times I tried to give up my drug addiction by reducing the amount of drugs I was using, but it never worked. One day I met a friend, Stas. He used to take drugs, but he had stopped. He told me that I would not be able to overcome drug addiction on my own, and he told me about the USAID Dialogue on HIV and TB Project’s community center.

Reducing Ethnic Tension in Schools
Kyrgyzstan

The revolutions of the past decade have taken their toll on many of Kyrgyzstan’s schools. Interethnic conflicts in the south and the mass migration of people to cities pose new challenges for educators, parents and communities. The post-conflict zones and the new settlements around Bishkek, where migrants are concentrated, face the most critical situations: lack of documents to register children, over-crowded classrooms, a shortage of teachers, inadequate teaching facilities, and under-financed education infrastructure.

Where We Work

Map of the Central Asian Republics and thier position on their globe.
Last Updated: 02-17-2013