ILO works to boost local capacity

Selling apples is Slava Kim's life. "The apples here are famous. The best in Kazakhstan," the 26-year-old boasted outside Taldikorgan's fruit and vegetable market, provincial capital of Kazakhstan's southeastern Almaty province, which takes its name from the fruit. Despite his enthusiasm, however, the apples, renowned for their variety and flavour, never make their way to the country's commercial capital and largest market, Almaty, just 270 km to the southeast, much less the rest of the vast Central Asian nation of 15 million. In fact, most fruit and vegetables come from South Kazakhstan and neighbouring Uzbekistan instead. "I only sell my apples here," Kim told IRIN, conceding little understanding of market economics. But it's precisely that lack of local capacity that the International Labour Organization (ILO), in collaboration with local authorities and an NGO on the ground, hope to address in 2005. In addition to apples, the region has strong potential in other areas of agriculture, as well as animal husbandry. As part of a US $2 million programme by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Azerbajian, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, to boost the capacity of institutions dealing with employment issues - particularly among youth - the ILO has targeted three areas in Taldikorgan, including vocational training, regional promotion and the introduction of modern cooperative principles. "We want to revitalise the local economy with the aim of creating new jobs, generating income in the process," Geert van Boekel, the ILO's regional adviser on local economic development (LED) and cooperatives told IRIN. The problems faced by the region were not dissimilar to those faced by countries in eastern and central Europe, where access to finance and the markets had also proved problematic, he said. Following the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region's agricultural infrastructure largely collapsed, including the region's once thriving apple processing facility, ILO national coordinator, Saule Kudekova, told IRIN in Almaty. And as in many countries of the former Soviet Union, many people were reluctant to work together after years of collective farming. However, they now understand that an individual farmer like Kim cannot be competitive alone. In fact in many rural areas, villagers are coming together to bring their products to the market. But even when farmers do come together, they still lack the necessary skills to compete in today's market. The farm must be viewed as a company if it is to be competitive, van Boekel explained, with education proving a primary element. Many vocational schools in the former Soviet Union continued to teach things no longer relevant to today's market economy, the ILO official observed, adding: "There is no compliance with the real demand of the labour market and the supply of the labour force." But vocational training was just part of the equation. A consorted action was needed to promote and market the strengths of the region. "If you want to increase your production, you have to promote what you do. People should know what their potential is," van Boekel said. As a third component, the ILO wants to introduce modern cooperative principles in agriculture production. "We want to promote the organisation of production and make it efficient and competitive," van Boekel said, explaining the problem was not so much quality as quantity. "They need to boost their capacity. We need to open people's eyes to the potential, but also the possible risks if they don't." Fortunately, local authorities in the area are already doing just that. "By sharing international experience, this is a real opportunity to develop the potential of this region," Nurila Bukekbayeva, head of Almaty's provincial department for labour and social security, told IRIN in her office in Taldikorgan. "People's mentalities over the past year have changed and now they need new skills." Zholtai Baltabekov, director of the department of rural sectors for Almaty province, agrees, citing the lack of processing plants, for vegetable, meat and dairy products in the area. "Because of the lack of processing plants, people are not interested in producing more," Baltabekov said, adding these were one of the issues they were now trying to address, with two processing plants now in the planning process for the region. Meanwhile, the ILO's van Boekel is already looking to the future, hoping to see tangible results in the first three months of 2005. If successful, the experiences, processes and mechanisms of the three pilot areas could very well be replicated, perhaps nationwide. "We are trying to build a consensus between the public and private sector as well as civil society," he said, ensuring that events launched within the framework of the project were supported by a broad local platform. The project activities would ideally become part of the normal working routine of local institutions, he added.