Fact Sheets

USAID Central Asia Environment and Water Fact Sheet

Water resources management is one of the more complex challenges in the region. The five countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), struggle to balance their limited water supplies with their growing populations and economies. USAID works to address these challenges by helping cross border communities to cooperate with their neighbors while helping governments to better manage shared water resources.

USAID Environmental Restoration of the Aral Sea

The Aral Sea tragedy is one of the world's most infamous environmental disasters. Once the fourth-largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea began to decrease in the 1960s and by 1997 had shrunk to approximately 10 percent of its former size due to water diversions from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to irrigate vast fields of rice, wheat, and cotton.

USAID's Regional Water and Vulnerable Environment

The USAID Regional Water and Vulnerable Environment Activity strengthens water cooperation across Central Asia for improved stability, economic prosperity, and healthy ecosystems.

Central Asia Energy Fact Sheet

In recent years, people have gained better, more dependable access to electricity, but over a billion people worldwide still lack reliable access to electricity, and many more suffer from poor service quality, including frequent and long power outages. However, innovative and disruptive technologies are now rapidly entering the market, with the prices for low-cost and reliable electricity falling dramatically. USAID is committed to helping the Central Asia region liberalize the power sector to encourage greater private investment, rebuild a regional power market, and generate low-cost energy using the region’s diverse mix of potential energy resources - particularly wind, solar, hydro, and biomass. By partnering with the countries of Central Asia, international donor agencies, and the private sector, USAID helps support a long-term, sustainable vision of the region’s energy sector. As the region pursues improvements to energy infrastructure and institutions, more robust integration of the region’s energy markets, and economic growth based on energy trading, USAID’s assistance is helping to realize this important vision. The U.S. will also bring the power of the American private sector to develop a cost-effective, reliable and least-cost electricity system.

USAID Power Central Asia

Enhancing energy security, regional connectivity, and adoption of clean energy technologies across Central Asia.

USAID's Power the Future Fact Sheet

USAID’s Power the Future activity is accelerating Central Asia’s transition to cost-effective, low emission, energy-secure, and climate resilient economies through increasing the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency in all five Central Asian countries.

Central Asia Regional Electricity Market

USAID is providing technical assistance and capacity building to the five Central Asian countries to help create an economically viable Central Asia Regional Electricity Market (CAREM). Through its assistance and leadership, USAID is partnering with Central Asian governments, donors, and other key stakeholders to develop and implement the market’s technical and regulatory frameworks and establish institutions needed to maintain a secure and stable regional electricity market.

Central Asia Energy Utility Partnership

To create an enabling environment for a regional transition to cleaner, more reliable power supply, and encourage establishment of an integrated power market, the United States Energy Association (USEA) in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) established a Central Asia Partnership within its Energy Utility Partnership Program (EUPP).

Central Asia Energy Regulatory Partnership

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has established the Central Asia Energy Regulatory Partnership (CAERP) within its Energy Regulatory Partnership Program.

The USAID CASA-1000 Secretariat 

Central Asia South Asia (CASA)-1000 will enable seasonal hydro-power surpluses from Central Asia to serve growing electricity demands in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Central Asia Trade and Enterprise Development

The U.S. is the largest single-country provider of trade capacity building assistance in the world. This assistance helps developing countries take advantage of the global trading system and harness trade as an engine of growth and development.

USAID works with other U.S. government partners to provide trade capacity building and enterprise development assistance to build the physical, human and institutional capacity of these countries to participate in and benefit from rules-based trade. 

USAID's Future Growth Initiative 

USAID’s Future Growth Initiative spurs productive economic activity across Central Asia to increase local competitiveness, create new jobs, and improve incomes for Central Asia’s growing workforce.

USAID’s Trade Central Asia

USAID Trade Central Asia activity will support women traders and businesses in the region by reviewing current trade policies and practices for bias against women and designing activities to help women overcome these challenges.

Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality Fact Sheet

At USAID, gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the core of our development work. We strive to reduce gender disparities, gender-based violence, and ensure women’s equal access to economic, social, decision-making processes and can reach their full potential in society.

Central Asia Media Program 

The USAID-funded Central Asia Media Program aims to develop a more balanced information environment in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to increase openness among youth and adults for differing ideas, opinions, and perspectives and in turn increase their engagement in civic participation.

USAID's Central Asia Support For Stable Societies

 The USAID Central Asia Support for Stable Societies activity is identifying and testing new methods for the prevention of violent extremism (PVE) in Central Asia.

Safe Migration in Central Asia

The Safe Migration in Central Asia activity uses evidence-based practices and cross-border connections to strengthen the mutual accountability and effectiveness of governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector to prevent trafficking in persons, protect survivors, and promote safe migration, as part of USAID’s Asia-wide suite of counter-trafficking interventions.

Social Innovation in Central Asia

The USAID-funded Social Innovation in Central Asia program is a five-year, $18 million program implemented by Eurasia Foundation to cultivate a vibrant and responsive civil society throughout the region, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and build a new generation of forward-looking civil society leaders (2019-2024).

HIV Kazakhstan Fact Sheet

Central Asia is one of the few regions in the world where the HIV epidemic continues to grow, especially in Kazakhstan. Currently, most infections occur within concentrated high-risk groups, including people who inject drugs (PWID) and their injecting and sexual partners. Thirty-seven percent of the cumulative HIV cases in Kazakhstan has been reported among PWID. The epidemiological data show that female sex workers and men who have sex with men are also disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS relative to the general population.

USAID's Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control

The USAID Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control project is designed to break through remaining, persistent barriers to reaching HIV prevention and treatment goals and promote self-reliant management of national HIV programs. 

Promoting the Quality of Medicines Fact Sheet

The USAID-supported Promoting the Quality of Medicines Plus activity, implemented by U.S. Pharmacopeia, provides technical assistance to sustainably strengthen medical product quality assurance systems in low- and middle-income countries through cross-sectoral and systems strengthening approaches. The Government of Kazakhstan considers the development of the domestic pharmaceutical industry a priority, providing safe and affordable medicines and products to the population. Currently, the pharmaceutical industry is undergoing the most ambitious reform in its history.

Tuberculosis Fact Sheet

Tuberculosis (TB) is the deadliest infectious disease in the world and Central Asia has some of the world’s highest rates of drug-resistant TB. Delayed diagnosis, weak laboratory services and health care, high-risk co-morbidities, and the challenges of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) cause millions of people across the globe to suffer and die from the disease each year. In September 2018, the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB set the stage for unprecedented attention and action on TB. This meeting established the ambi¬tious targets of diagnosing and enrolling an additional 40 million people on TB treatment by 2022 (commonly referred to as 40x22), with a focus on countries with the highest TB burdens. 

USAID's Eliminating Tuberculosis in Central Asia

The USAID Eliminating Tuberculosis in Central Asia activity reduces the burden of tuberculosis (TB) in Central Asia by building local and regional capacity to improve the detection and treatment of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB).

Improved Prevention, Detection and Treatment of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Central Asia

The Improved Prevention, Detection and Treatment of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Central Asia program is based on a comprehensive multi-component approach to provide support to the National Tuberculosis Programs (NTPs) of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in significantly scaling up the prevention, detection, and treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB).