Sheladia Associates, Inc.

The pace of political and economic changes in recent years has caused Kazakhstan’s policy makers to adjust their operating philosophy from a production-oriented command economy to a market-sensitive economy. The strong production orientation of the country’s farms and agricultural enterprises, and the nation’s rich endowment of technical expertise suggest that the principal challenge facing the agricultural sector is to establish a policy environment that rewards efficiency, promotes greater integration into regional and global markets, and provides producers and processors with timely and accurate market information upon which they can base farm management decisions. Technical assistance was provided to respond to this need by strengthening the Government’s capacity to manage its ongoing agriculture sector reforms.

• Comprehensive review of the implementation of the Government’s policy reforms in the agriculture sector, including land and water reforms and farm restructuring; reforms in agricultural commodities and resources pricing, procurement, marketing, and external trade; restructuring and privatization of state-owned enterprises in agricultural processing and marketing; and reforms in the rural financial system
• Strengthening of the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), including an institutional analysis of MOA’s capacity in program implementation, and a training program to transfer to MOA staff the critical skills of policy analysis, formulation, program implementation, and reform impact monitoring
• Establishing an effective monitoring system for both implementation of reforms and evaluation of the impact of the reforms.