A meeting of the Khorog Urban Resilience Program Steering Committee took place in Dushanbe on April 29.
Press release issued by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) Office in Dushanbe says the Steering Committee Meeting, which was held under the Khorog Urban Resilience Program (KURP), was attended by Najmiddin Davlatzoda, Deputy Head of the Local Development Committee under the President of Tajikistan, Ms. Salome Steib, Director of the Swiss Cooperation Office (SCO) in Tajikistan, Ambassador Qozidavlat Qoimdodov, AKDN Resident Representative in Tajikistan, Khorog Mayor Rizo Nazarzoda, and representatives of a number of relevant ministries and development partners.
The Steering Committee is set up under the Khorog Urban Resilience Program, a five-year initiative designed to set up structures, systems, and capacity to transform Khorog into a model of a resilient city, promoting sustainable economic growth and investment, funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) with the contribution of the AKDN, and it is periodically held to obtain endorsements from the national government, convene stakeholders, and provide updates.
This meeting reportedly discussed introducing the Certificate Program in Urban Resilience, construction of the facility for waste sorting, and construction of the pedestrian bridge connecting the central mahallas of Khorog.
The partners noted the importance of capacity building under the Program. The project implementation team will partner with local institutions for knowledge capture and knowledge transfer, ensuring the sustainability and replication of the program in other areas of Tajikistan and the specific activities in Khorog.
At the end of the meeting, Khorog Mayor expressed his gratitude to development partners for being a great support and friend to Tajikistan and for the Government of Switzerland’s and AKDN’s valuable input into Tajikistan’s development process.
Khorog Urban Resilience Program (KURP) is a five-year partnership with the Government of Tajikistan and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), with co-funding from the agencies of the AKDN, the EU and the Embassy of Japan. It was developed as an initiative to link Government planning and investments to initiatives by the community, the private sector and the AKDN and International partners. The program will work to 1) strengthen the capacity of public, private and community institutions at national and municipal level, proof of concept projects demonstrating the value of resilience tools, 2) resilience informed planning through the creation of a resilience knowledge base and 3) mobilize investments in resilience through decreasing the risks to key infrastructure from natural hazards and environmental deterioration, thus leading to increased economic growth.
