Improving food security and nutrition through cash+ in Kyrgyzstan

FAO

Improving food security and nutrition through cash+ in Kyrgyzstan

Combining cash transfers with productive assets, inputs, agricultural and nutrition trainings to support vulnerable and poor rural households in Jalal-Abad province

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 12 p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) 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.

Language English

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