The conference dedicated to the first anniversary of operation of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Tajikistan took place at Hyatt Regency Dushanbe Hotel on May 24. During the event, the KOICA representatives told about the results of the work in our country and listened to international partner organizations’ proposals for cooperation.
The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Korea to Tajikistan Korea, Mr. Kwon Dong Seok, as well as Head of the International Economic Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MoEDT) and UN agencies active in the country for many years attended the event.
Compared to them, KOICA, which has been operating in our country for only a year, is new to Tajikistan. However, in just one year of its activity, it has made a significant contribution to development of various sectors of Tajikistan: from industry to education.
As it was noted at the very beginning of the event, in fulfilling its mission, KOICA receives great support from the embassy of the republic of Korea in Dushanbe.
“I will do my best to help Tajikistan achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” said Korean Ambassador Kwon Dong Seok.
According to him, cooperation between Korea and Tajikistan has expanded significantly in recent year. Mr. Dilshod Sharifi, the head of the MoEDT Department for International Economic Cooperation, confirmed this.
“We see sustainable development in all areas, including in humanitarian and trade and economic cooperation,” he said. “Thus, the bilateral trade between Tajikistan and the Republic of Korea last year valued at almost 50 million US dollars, which is 22 percent more than in 2021.”
According to him, the fact that Tajikistan is included in the list of the most priority countries “is path to great opportunities.”
“We need to take our relationships to a higher level. For this, we must implement as many projects as possible in priority areas, establish mutual cooperation in the energy sector and at the same time increase the flow of investments from Korea to Tajikistan. The most important part is the development of trade, economic and investment cooperation,” Sharifi said, adding that a number of important projects were implemented in the years of independence in the fields of energy, public management, health care, education, technologies, etc.
In his presentation focused on KOICA’s contribution to development of Tajikistan, KOICA Country Director Jeong Minyoung noted that a total volume of assistance provided by Korea to Tajikistan in the framework of the official development assistance (ODA) during the period from 1991 to 2022 amounted to 26.12 million US dollars, including KOICA’s contribution amounting to 14.72 million US dollars.
Bilateral cooperation, multilateral cooperation, cooperation with other partners and ways to cooperate with CIAT was introduced and explained during the presentation.
During discussions, representatives of some UN agencies active in the country made their proposals for cooperation with KOICA.
Thus, representative of UN Women advised to pay attention to the gender aspect of each priority area of the Agency’s work in Tajikistan:
“Regarding the "green economy", in rural areas, those who have to somehow adapt to it are women; because often they belong to the vulnerable segments of the population. In this regard, I would like you to pay attention to their problems, in particular in the framework of cooperation with the UN and UN Women,” she said.
Representative of UN FAO, for his part, noted that in the field of agriculture, it is important to establish cooperation between development agencies in Korea, businesses in Korea and Tajikistan directly.
“In Tajikistan, we have already been successfully implementing projects related to gender aspects, which are regulated by UN Women. There are many ways to apply and combine in practice all the capabilities of each organization,” he added.
Mr. Jeong Minyoung assured every speaker that KOICA is ready to listen to every suggestion and opinion in order to make cooperation effective.
For this purpose, 1:1 consultation was organized at the end of the event to give representatives of invited organizations to ask their questions personally to each employee of KOICA Office in Tajikistan.
