On Thursday February 14, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Tajikistan Office in collaboration with Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MoEDT) organized a roundtable on “National Development Council (NDC).

According to JICA Tajikistan Office, the roundtable participants included representatives of  governmental agencies, donor organizations and a special mission from Japan, led by Prof. Tomaru Motomi, who was the former JICA Expert to the Presidential Office of Tajikistan as a Development Policy Advisor (from 2004 to 2005). 

The roundtable was chaired by Mr. Tojiddin Jurazoda, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade.  Mr. Hideki Tanabe, Chief Representative of JICA, also made opening remarks, followed by the speech by the chairman of the Development Coordination Council (DCC), Mr. Jan-Peter Olters, World Bank Country Director.

Jurazoda reportedly mentioned the new regulation on Monitoring and Evaluation for Mid Term Development Plan (MtDP) 2016-2020 and Working Group to be set with ministries and development partners. It is important to follow up the progress and consider how to work on the challenges for the future. Action Matrix of MtDP for 2016-2020 was introduced and the comments were made by development partners.

Prof. Tomaru was invited to the roundtable to observe the progress of development policy of the Government of Tajikistan from the viewpoint of the former JICA Expert, who had made proposal to build effective national development system, and to understand the current challenges of NDC, according to JICA Tajikistan Office.

Prof. Tomaru reportedly commented that for further development of Tajikistan, difficulties in empowering NDC would be one of the challenges; taking into granted that NDC should be allowed to actively play its role in governmental structure.

Coordination with development partners, private sector and civil society is seen as indispensable for strengthening the functions and activities of NDC.  For this reason, in particular, as a government-development-partner coordination mechanism the Development Coordination Council (DCC) is expected to make efforts seamlessly in the process of preparing for the next NDC session to be assumingly held in 2019.

Looking back at the programs of JICA in the past, upon on the request from the Government of Tajikistan, JICA assigned Prof. Tomaru as a JICA Expert “Development Policy Advisor” to the Presidential Office throughout 2004 to 2005.  During his assignment, assessing the existed development management mechanism, Prof. Tomaru compiled his findings and recommendations into the Assessment Report.  In the Report, he suggested a proposal to build an effective development system, saying “To create National Development Council (tentative name) to fix the National Development Strategy and policy priority, by the representative of civil society (NGOs), private sector (business associations), and public sector (ex-officio and secretariat of the council).”  Based on his suggestion, with approval of the Government of Tajikistan, the President of Tajikistan signed the Presidential Decree on “The Formulation of the NDC under the President of Tajikistan” on December 19, 2007.

JICA began its technical cooperation with Tajikistan in 1993 by inviting Tajik officials to gain knowledge and experience on governance and macroeconomics development.  As of January 2018, a total number of participants to JICA’s Knowledge Co-Creation Programs, formerly called the Training Programs, has exceeded 2200 people.  JICA Office was established in 2006 in Tajikistan and since then various Grant Financial Assistance and Technical Cooperation projects have been implemented more dynamically, aiming at improving living standard of Tajik people for the sectors such as agriculture and rural development, water supply, health, transport, energy, capacity building as well as SME promotion.  JICA’s cumulative investment portfolio in Tajikistan in all sectors comprises 35 projects amounting to more than 349.6 million USD (82 million USD for Technical Cooperation and 267.6 million USD for Grant Assistance), including 11 on-going projects.