Regional Programme Integrative and Climate-sensitive Land Use in Central Asia
Total duration: March 2021 – December 2026
The drylands and high mountains of Central Asia are home to diverse ecosystems but due to the high pressure on the limited natural resources of forests, pastures, soils and water, these ecosystems are increasingly being overused. This leads to a rapid decline in biodiversity, increasing water scarcity, deforestation, land degradation and desertification. Climate change exacerbates the situation by causing further degradation of natural resources, resulting in a decrease in ecosystem services and productivity, as well as an increased vulnerability of different land use systems.
Despite having established legal and strategic frameworks for sustainable land use in the past decade, Central Asian countries continue to face challenges in effectively implementing reform processes within the land use sector, mainly because of limited capacities of state administrations. The necessary regional and cross-border collaboration in the AFOLU sector (agriculture, forestry and other land uses) concerning the shared landscapes and ecosystems still remains in its early stages.
Therefore, the Regional Programme Integrative and Climate-sensitive Land Use in Central Asia aims at better mainstreaming integrative land use approaches at regional and national levels through the following components:
- Improving national monitoring systems in the AFOLU sector,
- Improving integrative and climate-informed land use planning processes,
- Strengthening regional cooperation on integrative land use in Central Asia, and
- Strengthening capacities of the National Designated Authorities (NDA) in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to mobilise climate finance for the AFOLU sector.