CGIAR Central Asia and the Caucasus

NEW SOCIOECONOMIC PROJECT LAUNCHED FOR CENTRAL ASIA

To support the Central Asian Countries Initiative on Land Management (CACILM), IFPRI and ICARDA have initiated a joint study entitled “Economic Analysis of Sustainable Land Management Options in Central Asia”. The purpose of this study is to assess the economic feasibility, costs and benefits of alternative land management options within important domains and land use systems of Central Asia. The study will serve the objectives of CACILM, helping decision makers to prioritize investment opportunities to promote sustainable land management (SLM) and identify key constraints that must be addressed through policy or institutional changes to enable these opportunities to be realized. This project will build upon the SLM research under CACILM being led by ICARDA and partners from the Central Asian countries, focusing on options being tested or that have potential in the benchmark sites of the CACILM SLM-Research project. It will also link to a companion policy research project being initiated by ICARDA and IFPRI - “Enabling Livelihoods Options for Sustainable Land Management in Central Asia, Pakistan and China”.

The Inception workshop of the Project on “Economic Analysis of Sustainable Land Management Options in Central Asia” was held on 19th of September, 2008, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. During the inception workshop the stakeholders in Central Asia were informed about the study objectives, expected outcomes, and planned activities. Based on the feedback received from them, further actions for implementation of the project have been planned.