OSCE Office in Tajikistan

The OSCE Office in Tajikistan assists the Tajik Government in implementing its poverty reduction programme by fostering the growth of small- and medium-size enterprises and supporting efforts to carry out land reform. The Office is also helping to tackle irregular labour migration and promote trade development between Tajikistan and its neighbours, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Small business development

The OSCE Office has financed numerous projects that enable entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. Many projects have focused on the east and south of the country, providing training opportunities to enable women, whose husbands have gone abroad in search of work, to support themselves and their families through sewing and baking, for example.

In 2006, the Office launched a network of information centres for small businesses in Shahrinav, Bohtar, Khujand, Jirgital and Khorog that provide legal consultation and training courses on starting and managing small businesses.

OSCE-funded summer camps in 2004, 2005 and 2006, some of which included students from Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, as well as Tajikistan, helped to develop basic entrepreneurial skills for young people who want to start their own businesses.

Supporting land reform

Since 1996, Tajikistan has been reorganizing large state and collective farms into co-operatives and individual farms. In 2004, the OSCE Office launched a training project to help increase farmers' awareness and understanding of their rights and land tenure options.

To increase the capacity of rural entrepreneurs, the Office has launched information centres for agricultural businesses and farms in Dushanbe, Jomi, Kurgan-Tyube, Nurobod, Shaartuz and Qumsangir. In 2006, these centres provided more than 2,500 farmers with information and advice on starting businesses, improving produce, and fighting pests and diseases, as well as on the taxation of agricultural enterprises.

Assisting labour migrants

Hundreds of thousands of Tajik citizens go abroad each year to find work, mainly in Russia and Kazakhstan. Many are unaware of immigration and registration requirements in destination countries and become irregular migrants.

To help the Government reduce the number of migrants who violate these regulations, the Office and the International Organization for Migration have financed an information resource centre in Dushanbe for potential migrants since 2004. In 2006, the Office established regional information centres in Khujand, Kulyab, Kurgan-Tyube and Shaartuz, which have provided more than 600 potential labour migrants with information and advice on the legal requirements for working abroad.

The OSCE Office also assisted the Tajik Foreign Employment Service expand and renovate its premises, acquire computer equipment and conclude agreements with potential foreign employers of Tajik labour migrants.

Developing cross-border trade

The Office has been promoting trade development between Tajikistan and Afghanistan since 2004. A number of cross-border business deals have resulted from an OSCE-supported international conference in 2005 on developing trade among countries bordering the Pamir region. The event was held in Khorog, the administrative centre of the Badakhshan region of eastern Tajikistan.

In 2007, the OSCE Office opened a centre for promoting cross-border trade between Tajikistan and Afghanistan in order to provide information on customs and markets to entrepreneurs on both sides of the border. It will also offer business training opportunities focusing on small enterprises that promote cross-border trade.

A trade development conference for officials, local chambers of commerce and businessmen and women in southern Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan is planned to coincide with the opening of a new bridge across the Panj River, which forms part of the border between the two countries.

Business training opportunities will also be provided in the more northern Rasht Valley to encourage local entrepreneurs to produce goods for export to Kyrgyzstan.