Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Policy Reforms in Central Asia

Concluding Remarks In this chapter there are a wide variety of issues related to strengthening institutional capacity for designing and implementing policy reforms in the Central Asian countries have been discussed. While countries in Central Asia are at various levels of the reform process, the issues related to human and institutional capacity for conducting research and analysis for enabling policy reforms remains equally a challenge in all of the Central Asian countries. While learning from each other is beneficial in understanding the process of institutional capacity strengthening, countries can benefit from other countries in Eastern Europe and the West on how institutions are organized to produce effective capacity for information generation and policymaking. Attaining the food security, poverty reduction, and sustainable natural resource management goals in the region will require developing national strategies and investing adequate resources to achieve those strategies. Central Asia is the only region where poverty and food insecurity is likely to increase if appropriate policy and institutional reforms are not implemented. The agriculture sector continues to play a major role in the economic development of the countries in the region. Yet, the slow process of transformation of institutions to meet the policy challenges in the region continues to worry the international community. Capacity development, maintenance, utilization, and transformation within the national institutions for policy research, analysis, and implementation will be an essential part of the development process in the region. The role of institutional reforms of research organizations, universities, and educational systems to contribute towards increased capacity for research and analysis that enables appropriate policy reforms in the region can hardly be over emphasized.