Strategies for Development and Food Security in Mountainous Areas of Central Asia Paper 10: Development of Social Organisation in Tajikistan: MSDSP’s Approach in the Mountainous Areas

This paper outlines the social organisation approach adopted and applied by the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) of the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) in the mountain areas of Tajikistan. The paper is divided in to three parts. The first part briefly presents the context of the pre-intervention situation. Despite heavy investments from Moscow and excellent social sector indicators, Tajikistan was the poorest republic of the Soviet Union. Its economy was predominantly agrarian. After independence in 1991, the centralised support systems broke down and the economy collapsed. The economic crisis was further accentuated by the outbreak of civil war. While many parts of the country faced food security issues, this issue was particularly severe in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) which faced famine-like conditions in 1993/94. In response to this situation, and at the request of the government, AKF established MSDSP as the first major local non-governmental organisation in the country. During the first five years, MSDSP established three major programmes, i.e. Humanitarian Assistance Programme (HAP) in 1993, the Agricultural Reform Programme (ARP) in 1994 and the Village Organisatio