Central Asia – A Checklist of Risks, Challenges and Possibilities

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – Dosyt Satpayev, the director of Kazakhstan’s Risk Assessment Group, recently read a paper on the risks, challenges and possibilities of Central Asia to the 15^th International Conference on Risk Management which took place in Almaty. Kyrgystan’s Elgezit agency has now published it.

                Satpayev’s paper presents many details about each of the countries in the region, but it is perhaps most useful as a checklist of the risks, challenges and possibilities not only of each country but of the region as well (elgezit.kg/2019/07/08/tsentralnaya-aziya-riski-vyzovy-i-vozmozhnosti/).  

            The domestic risks vary widely, the Kazakh expert says. Kazakhstan’s now involve the transit of power, Kyrgyzstan’s and Tajikistan’s the growth of foreign debt, and all serious problems with the business climate and attracting outside investment.

            Demography is also a problem but in different ways in different places. Tajikistan’s population is growing so fast that demography is now a source of instability. Uzbekistan’s population is exploding as well, with 700,000 new people ready to enter the work force each year, far more than the country can provide jobs for.

            In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in contrast, a more serious problem is the aging of the population, something that requires shifting resources from schools to hospitals among other steps.

            Among the most important common problems of the countries of the region are a serious brain drain, economic inequality among the regions within the countries, the shadow economy and high levels of corruption, frequent cadres changes and the absence of continuity, economies overly dependent on raw materials, the rebirth of Islam as a primary identity, and terrorism. 

            The external risks to the region are a product of its geography: it is caught in a triangle between Russia, China and the Muslim world, a situation many of the countries are seeking to overcome by reaching out to powers further away. So far however, the Central Asian states have not been able to insure themselves against changes in the immediate neighbors.

            Regional risks, Saptayev says, including difficulties of overcoming geography, climate change, and border conflicts among many of the countries.

            According to the Kazakh analyst, “the regional agenda for all the countries of Central Asia must consist of five points: security, economic cooperation, the development of human capital, protection of the environment, and water and energy cooperation among themselves and their neighbors.