BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 27. Kazakhstan becoming leader in forging peer-to-peer learning and regional connectivity and integration in Central Asia, the USAID official told Trend.
The official noted that these are the results of USAID’s cooperation with local KazAID agency.
Thus, in April 2022, USAID/Central Asia and KazAID held a workshop on organizational capacity building to identify priority areas for providing development assistance in a more efficient way.
“The workshop focused on program development and management, performance management, organizational governance and sustainability, and budget development. As a result of the workshop, both agencies came up with the specific areas of direct government-to-government cooperation and technical assistance, program exchanges and visits to learn more about regional programming and implementation,” the official said.
In their words, this helped both agencies to enhance greater donor coordination and leverage Kazakhstan as a leader to forge peer-to-peer learning and regional connectivity and integration in Central Asia.
“Operationally, it was an important opportunity to shape the Government of Kazakhstan's approach to include key development principles such as transparency, inclusion, and sustainability,” they added.
On June 24, 2021, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Kazakhstan Agency for International Development (KazAID) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on development assistance to foster social, political, and economic stability and security in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The MOU’s main idea is to allow the two agencies to cooperatively work towards promoting democratic principles and good governance, protecting human rights, expanding economic prosperity, ensuring social stability, improving health and well-being, and eradicating poverty in the region.