Helping Kyrgyz rural communities to improve their lives
08 May 2007
 DFID has allocated £7 million to the second phase of the
 World Bank's Village
Investment Programme (VIP-2), which will be implemented from 2007 to 2010. This
will bring DFID's total commitment to the VIP-2 project to £8m, including the £1m
in technical assistance provided in the first phase.
This will increase the overall programme budget to US$35.7 million
and will be used to finance the construction and rehabilitation of the social and economic
infrastructure, such as improvements to roads, health centres and
schools.
DFID will co-finance the World Bank and
German Government with all funds managed by
ARIS,
the Community Development and Investment Agency.
In the second phase, ARIS will increase project coverage to 100% of village
municipalities in the country.
The goal of this project is to reduce rural poverty in the Kyrgyz Republic
through empowering communities to improve access to social and economic
infrastructure services.
The impact is likely to be far reaching:
- improved access to essential
infrastructure services
- better and more accessible education
- sanitary and
health facilities
- more employment opportunities
- better access to markets
- and a
general revitalisation of rural communities.
VIP is a very popular programme in the Kyrgyz Republic and ARIS is a
well-recognised “brand”. This is due mainly to the fact that it is
nationally-owned, is exclusively resourced with national staff, is visible, and
has an impact. Another important factor is that ARIS is fully supported but not controlled by the government. It has
made huge gains in terms of transparency and accountability and has supported
rather than undermined local governments.
By the end of the second year
(December 2005) the project had exceeded expectations, having implemented
community projects in 226 of total 475 Aiyl Okmotus (rural municipalities). This
was a considerable achievement in the context of political upheaval and
fragility in the Kyrgyz Republic.
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