Kazakhstan Resilient Agroforestry and Rangeland Management Project

Country overview

Kazakhstan has a unique set of landscapes, including deserts, high mountains with diverse types of vegetation such as meadow, steppe and savanna forests. Although only 4.7 percent of the total country area covered by forests, they are of high environmental importance in protecting the soil from erosion, particularly Saxaul forests. According to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture, 70 percent of the country is considered degraded, and most degraded territories are arid zones with saxaul forests, steppes and agricultural dryland. 

How does the DSL-IP support Kazakhstan?

The overall objective of the project is to restore land productivity in targeted degraded landscapes in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The project will scale up sustainable management practices that minimize pressures and negative impacts on natural resources to reduce risks and vulnerability and enhance capacity of rural communities. In particular, adoption of sustainable landscape management approaches and integrated natural resource management (INRM) practices should help stabilize and even reverse trends of land degradation and increase the carbon sequestration. 

This project is divided into 2 pillars with the following pillar objectives: Pillar 1 (World Bank) aims to pilot agroforestry practices using a community-centered approach and to build government capacity for landscape management and restoration. Pillar 2 (FAO) focuses on expanding the use of sustainable pasture management practices and technologies in targeted areas.

The project’s components will support the achievement of integrated landscape management and diversified agro-ecological food production systems. 

• Component 1 (led by the World Bank) will strengthen the enabling environment for sustainable management of drylands in Kazakhstan in response to the Impact Project’s identified barrier of sector-specific, top down approaches to dryland issues. 
• Component 2 (led by the World Bank) will finance investments in dryland management with the WB pillar focusing on dryland agroforestry and landscape restoration. 
• Component 3 (led by FAO) will focus on dryland pasture addressing inadequate investments in technical and financial capacities for sustainably managing drylands. 
• Component 4 (led by the World Bank) will focus on Project Management and Monitoring and Evaluation activities of the joint WB-FAO project.

Project’s Target Contributions to GEF-7 Core Indicators