Kyrgyzstan
This chapter briefly describes the main demographic, macro-economic and environmental issues in Kyrgyzstan of relevance to the transport sector. It presents an overview of the urban public transport system in the country, as well as the level of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in the main urban centres. It also analyses the major health risks associated with the main air pollutants. This review forms part of the justification for the need for public support for investments in the transport sector.
The spreadsheet-based Optimising Public Transport Investment Costs (OPTIC) Model is is a simple, easy-to-use decision support tool prepared by the OECD to support the Government of Kyrgyzstan in preparing and estimating the costs and environmental benefits of the Clean Public Transport (CPT) Programme. It was used in particular for costing the replacement of the old bus fleet in urban centres with modern buses equipped with engines that run on:
This chapter summarises the economic analysis conducted to assess the viability of the deigned Clean Public Transport Programme. It begins with a general overview of clean technologies and fuels in the transport sector, as well as a specific review of the energy market in Kyrgyzstan. It then describes the economic aspects of purchasing and running buses, and finally assesses potential sources of government financing available for the programme.
Following the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disruption caused by the rapid transition to a market economy, Kyrgyzstan is enjoying a period of economic and political stability. However, the decline in income poverty has slowed over the past decade and certain measures of broader deprivation are alarmingly high, reflecting the challenge of improving services in a context of severe fiscal constraints. Tight labour market conditions are resulting in high levels of international migration, which is a boon for the Kyrgyz economy but socially disruptive. Major long-term threats related to demographics and climate change are on the horizon.
This chapter evaluates the effectiveness of the largest components of the social protection system according to their coverage rates, adequacy, equity and efficiency, using administrative and household survey data. It examines the Monthly Benefit for Poor Families with children (MBPF), the Monthly Social Benefit (MSB) and contributory pensions paid by the Social Fund, as well as the overall effectiveness of the pension and the health-care systems in responding to the population’s needs. It also analyses the impact of possible reforms to the state benefits for children.
Social protection in Kyrgyzstan covers a broad range of risks, receives a significant proportion of government funding and plays a critical role in alleviating poverty. However, provision is unevenly distributed; expenditure on social insurance is approximately five times higher than spending on social assistance, while social services and labour market policies for vulnerable workers are extremely small. Moreover, important gaps in social protection coverage exist, particularly for the urban poor, young people and the significant numbers of workers employed abroad.
This chapter examines spending on social protection from a systemic and whole-of-government perspective. It locates social protection expenditure within the Government’s overall budget and examines spending trends across the different pillars of the social protection sector, as well as across individual programmes within this sector. It also analyses the composition of government revenues and the financing of social protection in particular, identifying the increasing subsidisation of the social insurance system by the Republican Budget as a major cause for concern. It concludes with a fiscal incidence analysis showing the overall system of taxes and transfers significantly reduces inequality but its impact on poverty is less clear.
This chapter charts the evolution of social protection in Kyrgyzstan. It outlines the economic, political and legislative context for social protection, which is still undergoing transition from a Soviet-era system predicated on full employment, to a system more appropriate for a market-based economy with chronic unemployment and long-term poverty. It inventories existing social protection schemes, analyses their key design features and scale of operation, and discusses how well they meet the present and future needs identified in Chapter 1.
This chapter outlines a vision for a social protection system in Kyrgyzstan. It considers systematisation along a number of dimensions, including institutional, financial and programme-level, as well as the existence of an information architecture underpinning this system. The breadth of social protection programmes and high expenditure levels provide great potential for gains through systematisation but to fully capitalise on these requires rebalancing between different pillars of social protection provision and an increase in expenditure. Such reforms would complete the transition of the social protection provision from its Soviet legacy but the political economy of these measures would be highly challenging.
Kyrgyzstan has taken huge strides since gaining independence in 1991. Having embarked upon a rapid transition to a market economy, it has been equally bold in developing the political and social institutions of a modern democratic state. Although progress has not always been smooth, recent elections have demonstrated the growing stability of Kygyzstan’s political system, while its economy has shown great resilience in recent years.
Kyrgyzstan made a rapid transition to a market economy following independence from the Soviet Union. However, social protection provision has been much slower to adapt to the post-Communist context, due in part to the social insurance system that it inherited. Although pension receipt is almost universal among the elderly and thus serves as a critical buffer against poverty for them and their families, the cost of maintaining this system has imposed severe constraints on the development of social assistance, social services and labour market policies in place.
Preferred scenarios for reform of water supply and sanitation tariffs are often site-specific. For Cholpon-Ata city, two scenarios for reform of water supply and sanitation tariffs are assessed, and impacts of each scenario are synthesised in this chapter. Supporting and accompanying measures are proposed to facilitate implementation – these provide input to the draft Action Plan. Some of the measures are quite universal and could be applied also in other settlements.
Three scenarios for reform of surface water abstraction and water-body use charges are assessed, and impacts of each scenario are synthesised in this chapter. Supporting and accompanying measures are proposed to facilitate implementation – these provide input to the draft Action Plan.
Two scenarios for reform of land tax rate in the Lake Issyk-Kul area are assessed, and impacts of each scenario are synthesised in this chapter. Supporting and accompanying measures are proposed to facilitate implementation – these provide input to the draft Action Plan.
As part of the ongoing National Policy Dialogue (NPD) on water policy conducted in co-operation with the EU Water Initiative (EUWI), Kyrgyzstan has committed to enhance the use of economic instruments for water resources management to improve the management of surface and groundwater resources, including the quality of the resource. The reform would be very timely as by strengthening incentives for improving water use efficiency economic instruments could help to better balance growing demand for water (not least due to demand from export-led agriculture and tourism as key drivers of economic growth in Kyrgyzstan) with the available fresh water resources (the annual run-off will likely drop after 2050 due to negative impact of climate change) thus ensuring greater levels of security of water supply (presently, many farmers experience water shortages over the vegetation period). Also the reform could help to make the water sector more financially autonomous and less dependent on state support.