In Kyrgyzstan, IFAD funding helps reduce poverty and enhance economic growth in pastoral communities. Activities target vulnerable (especially women-headed) households and livestock producer households. Support is provided to increase production and to enhance activities further along the value chain such as processing, management, marketing and ownership.

Catalyzing growth in the livestock sector by moving away from input-driven exports of unprocessed commodities towards agricultural innovation, inclusive and comprehensive value chain development, food quality and safety, value addition, sustainable production, and resilience to climate change, natural disasters, and other external shocks, is considered as a real opportunity to achieve rural transformation.

The Access to Markets Project (ATMP) aims to raise incomes and enhance economic growth in pastoralist communities. Its development objective is the improved access and integration of smallholder livestock farmers into remunerative markets for their products, leading to improved and equitable returns.

The ATMP will work within several pre-selected value chains, providing holistic and coordinated support to different actors to improve the value chains’ overall performance and to increase outputs. The project will invite champions in these value chains who are willing to launch or deepen their sound business models through productive partnerships with producers and other value chain actors. Smallholder livestock producers will be represented in each selected value chain. Their income opportunities are expected to improve through better integration into the market. Pasture users’ unions, facilitated by the Kyrgyzstan’s Community Development and Investment Agency (ARIS) and building on the positive experiences of the Livestock and Market Development Programmes I and II, will play an active role in identifying and mobilizing target groups at the community level in a transparent and participatory manner to capture project opportunities and benefits.