Cash+ pilot programme in Kyrgyzstan: Improving food security, boosting productivity and diversifying livelihoods

FAO

Cash+ pilot programme in Kyrgyzstan: Improving food security, boosting productivity and diversifying livelihoods

Year of publication 2022

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 6p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Policy brief

ISBN 978-92-5-137112-1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) There is increased evidence of the positive incremental impacts on food security and nutrition, as well as poverty reduction and other dimensions, when social protection and agriculture policies and programmes are combined. In this context, the Government of Kyrgyzstan is developing and implementing the concept of a “social contract” as an umbrella programmatic framework to provide additional and more intensive support to poor and vulnerable households. Based on the latest available evidence and the specific expertise of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Kyrgyz Government and FAO have collaborated in order to pilot test an approach linking social protection benefits with agricultural support, with the aim of boosting food production, generating income opportunities and improving food security and nutrition.

Last updated 02/11/2022, see Corrigendum

Cite this content as:

FAO. 2022. Cash+ pilot programme in Kyrgyzstan: Improving food security, boosting productivity and diversifying livelihoods: Policy brief. Rome.

https://doi.org/10.4060/cc2702en

Language English

Also available in:

Russian

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Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked, lower-middle-income country in Central Asia with a population of 7 million. Between 2012 and 2019 the level of poverty declined significantly, but poverty rates in rural areas remained higher than in urban areas, with healthy diets unaffordable for 48 percent of the rural population and a stunting prevalence of 11.8 percent in 2018. Against this background, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) implemented the project “Developing capacity for strengthening food security and nutrition in selected countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia” which sought to improve the livelihoods, productive capacities, and food and nutrition security of poor and vulnerable households. This promising practice factsheet documents the intervention implemented in Kyrgyzstan from late 2017 to the end of 2018, with selected beneficiaries among households benefiting from the country’s main social assistance programme, which transfers cash assistance every month to households with children under 16 years of age and with earnings below the country’s guaranteed minimum income. The FAO cash+ intervention aimed to support livelihoods enhancement and agricultural productive capacities of beneficiaries while improving their knowledge of nutrition. The intervention benefited from a coherent and multisectoral approach that combined social protection and agricultural assistance to deliver positive changes in terms of food security, nutrition, income and livelihoods. As a result, it attracted the interest of both the government and the beneficiaries, with good local ownership and strong support from local administrations.