One of the least developed economies in Central Asia, Tajikistan is also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. A legacy of environmental mismanagement, underinvestment in basic infrastructure, and limited institutional capacity hampers the country’s ability to cope with the projected impacts of climate change. 

Tajikistan’s vulnerability—and that of the entire region—hinges on the availability of water, primarily from glaciers, and how those water resources are managed. More than 90 percent of the nation’s energy comes from small and large hydropower facilities, and two-thirds of the region’s water resources originate in Tajikistan.

A PPCR assessment has identified the following challenges:

• Severely inadequate climate data
   
• Low awareness of climate vulnerability among government agencies, the business community, and the general public
  
• Weak infrastructure in critical areas such as water, energy, and transport that leaves the country poorly equipped to cope with climate change
  
• Inability to assess threats to agriculture and the rural economy
  
• Inadequate government capacity to identify and respond to climate threats

With PPCR financing, the government plans to modernize the national system for collecting and analyzing weather and climate data, integrate climate considerations into flooding and river basin management investments, build more resilient hydropower facilities, and enhance the resilience of irrigation and upland agriculture. 

Since the country does not have a national adaptation program of action, the PPCR-funded initiatives provide an opportunity to focus on Tajikistan’s climate change needs. However, PPCR resources cannot finance programs to meet all of the country’s needs. Priority-setting will be critical, as will the management of expectations. The creation of partnerships with other institutions tackling climate change issues is also a priority. 

Expected Results: With support from PPCR, Tajikistan will improve its weather monitoring and data gathering systems, as well as retrofit an existing large-scale hydropower plant to make it more resilient to the impacts of climate change and enable it to capture excessive water from rapid glacier melts.