Stocktaking on Inclusive Green Economy in Central Asia and Mongolia: A Sub-Regional Perspective was produced as part of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) project “South-South Cooperation in Mongolia and Central Asian Countries: Sharing Knowledge on Inclusive Green Economies”. The project aimed to support Mongolia and Central Asian countries in developing their research capacity in the area of Green Economy and Ecological Civilisation and to share this knowledge with decision-makers and technical experts through knowledge exchange between China, Central Asian countries, and Mongolia.
One of the key components of the project was a six-week research fellowship programme that gathered green economy researchers from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan at Beijing Normal University. Over the course of the programme, research fellows participated in a number of lectures, seminars, workshops, field visits, knowledge exchange, training events, and conducted original research on inclusive green economy priority areas in their home countries. Their research outputs contributed to the country-specific sections of this report. The sub-regional issues were also drawn from key issue areas identified by the research fellows. An underlying area of focus for this project has been how sub-regional development plans, including China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative (B&R initiative), can serve as opportunities for the countries of Central Asia to transition towards inclusive green economies (IGEs) and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The information and analysis presented in this report, therefore, emphasises this aspect of regional development. Within that context, the goals of this report are to identify key sub-regional economic, social, and environmental challenges in Central Asia and to propose measures that can foster sub-regional cooperation as a means to address those challenges and take advantage of opportunities for a shift to IGE.