Adaptive and Resilient Communities in their Habitat Project (ARCH)

The World Bank identified Tajikistan as the most vulnerable and least resilient country to climate change in Europe and Central Asia. The International Panel for Climate Change reported that temperatures in Tajikistan would rise from 1.8 °C to 2.9 °C by 2050.

From 1992 to 2016 disasters affected 7 million people in Tajikistan and caused economic losses of US$1.8 billion. According to the data of the Government of Tajikistan, the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast is one of the disaster-hot spot regions of the country, highly exposed to earthquakes, landslides, avalanches, droughts, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF). The disasters disrupting the Pamirs’ remote mountain communities normal functioning, resulting in human, material, economic, and environmental losses. Furthermore, with a significant scarcity of resources, including productive land coupled with a growing population, people forced to expand their settlements in hazard areas and farm activities onto sloping lands.

These challenges aggravated by relatively higher poverty level in the region due to a lack of employment opportunities, businesses, and other appropriate industries. Lack of coordination, inadequate institutional capacities, weak systems and internal resources as well as knowledge base to facilitate efficient risk-informed and gender-balanced planning are some of the critical challenges. SDC will contribute to the initiative of the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) to address those challenges and needs in this project. 

Outcome 1: Authorities manage disaster risks effectively and in a partici­patory manner.

Outcome 2: Government structures at all levels (national, oblast, district, jamoat) systematically incorporate disaster risk aspects into their development planning and budgeting;

Outcome 3: Communities and authorities design and implement effective disaster risk reduction measures.

Expected results:  

• The Rapid Emergency Assessment and Coordination Team (REACT) fora participation and capacity are strengthened at the regional and district level by supporting the regional and district Governments to address natural hazards;
• State partners capacitated in risk-informed habitat planning based on the remote hazard and climate change adaptation planning;   
• Knowledge, best practices and learnings on resilience, DRR, and natural hazards generated and disseminated among the stakeholders; 
• Resiliency best practices and learnings incorporated into annual and operational planning (resilient village and district development planning);
• Strengthened cooperation between the stakeholders in delivery of the rural resiliency initiatives through Learning by Doing in the context of Rural Resilience Infrastructure and community response capacity.