German-Kazakh Agricultural Policy Dialogue’s 5th phase started 

In January 2023, AFC launched the fifth phase of the project „German-Kazakh Agricultural Policy Dialogue (short: APD)“. The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) within its Bilateral Cooperation Program.  

After successful implementation of the previous phase from 2020 to 2022, the team is now heading towards new challenges and tasks. The most significant addition for the new phase is the regional concept that is to be established and implemented by APD. Within the regional concept, a regional working group is established on a topic related to climate resilience and agriculture. Other projects funded by BMEL and other donors in the region are to be involved; these activities address representatives from agricultural policy, agricultural science as well as from civil society from other Central Asian countries. Apart from the regional concept, APD’s engagement in supporting the framework conditions for organic farming and in developing the system of agricultural finance and the corresponding legal and institutional structures will continue. An important point concerning the the platform for organic farming will be the exchange of experience on the legal and technical foundations of organic farming and its institutional framework, in particular the development of association and private sector structures. The platform for agricultural finance commits to policy-makers and experts in the agri-food sector from institutions, civil society and the private sector in order to improve the existing approaches and to develop new instruments and tools such as an apex-structure to refinance the agricultural credit unions and provide for this training and know-how. The combination of both, agricultural political and agri-finance topics matches AFC’s core competencies and offers opportunities for synergies. 

Moreover, the project is open for a general discussion on sustainable agriculture and actively encourages the Kazakh and regional partners to address their current political, economic, scientific and social issues. 

AFC held an internal kick-off meeting in Berlin during the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture. The expert team is highly motivated to continue its trustful relationships with the Kazakh, German and regional partners and the various activities. An official project kick-off event is foreseen for the second quarter of the year in Kazakhstan.  

While the main team of the project stays the same, a new expert from Uzbekistan is now enriching the projects´ competencies and networks specifically with regard to the regional concept and the organic platform. The project is planned for three years with a volume of 1.64 Mio EUR; a potential extension of another year would lead to a total volume of 2.2 Mio EUR. 

For more information, please, see https://agrardialog-kaz.de/ or turn to stefanie.maak [at] afci.de.