September 2008: A Week in Kyrgyzstan

When I told people I was going to Kyrgyzstan, a country that became independent of the Soviet Union in 1992, people thought I was talking about Kurdistan. I must confess that this was a country I too had little knowledge of.  It is in a part of the world that I have never visited before, nearly as far east as China, but now it is certainly a part of the world that I would like to return to. The people are wonderfully hospitable, even if the sanitary arrangements leave much to be desired!

A Day in the villages... 
The rest of our visit... 
Head of Central Election Committee flees for her life… 
Mental health services in Kyrgystan… 
Postscript…

A day in the villages…

For me, the highlight of the visit, which was with a delegation from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, was the day we spent visiting village investment projects funded by DfID. The villages we visited were in the oblast (province) of Issyk-Kul.  Our base for the day was Cholpon-Ata.  Though only 254km from the capital Bishkek, it took us over four hours to get there by road and the “comfort breaks” were not very comfortable!  The loos consisted of wooden boards with a hole in the ground over a pit and the Kyrgysts are not very fussy about privacy.  The Permanent Secretary in the Tourist Ministry assured us that this would improve!

Cholpon-Ata lies on the Lake of Issyk-Kul which dominates the province. In Soviet times the Lake was considered one of the best health resorts of the USSR. It is set at an altitude of 1608m and is the second largest mountain lake in the world - more like a sea for this landlocked country.  It is 702metres deep!

We arrived at our hotel near the lakeside just too late to witness what must have been a spectacular sunset over the water.  We had dinner with the Mayor of Cholpon-Ata who offered us sheep’s head and sheep’s eyes and much toasting with vodka.  After a good night’s sleep at our hotel, clearly a remnant of the Soviet era, we set off bright and early for the offices of ARIS, the Community Development and Investment Agency.

ARIS is an independent agency established by the Kyrgyz President in 2003 with a mission to assist in poverty reduction in rural areas.  Kyrgystan is a poor country with GDP per capita similar to that in Ghana and Cambodia and corruption is a big problem.  Through ARIS, communities are directly involved in decision-making and we saw with our own eyes how the programme has helped them mobilise their own skills and talents with capacity to undertake local development increased significantly. 

Corruption is minimized by a system of open voting when decisions are taken, e.g. on prioritizing projects, and there are information meetings and annual accountability and reflection meetings. All residents of territory covered by the Ayl Kanesh (village parliament) have membership of the Local Investment Union. There are arrangements to ensure women, young people and excluded groups have to be included in the membership of the Village Investment Committee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first project we visited was the reconstruction of the heating system and the repair of a kindergarten in Toruaygyr village. The pictures show us being greeted on our arrival and the presentation inside the kindergarten building.  Here, using exceptionally neat posters, the decision-making and finances were explained.  In all the micro-projects we visited, the villagers themselves had contributed in cash but mostly in kind, which is a condition of receiving funding.  Other projects we visited were irrigation systems - without water the mountainous regions are just deserts - and a healthcare facilty.

After a very hospitable lunch prepared in a villager’s own home, the drive to the second irrigation scheme took us over bare, rocky, mountains, where nothing grew. Suddenly we dropped down into a river valley which was a veritable Shangri-La. Everywhere we went we were offered food and tea but I will never forget the clotted cream and strawberry jam together with doughnut-like bread that we were offered at Dontalaa village. This was the last the place you expected to have a clotted cream tea! The strawberry jam was the most delicious I’ve ever tasted with small, whole, firm strawberries.

Our last project was a visit to a new health station at Konurolon village, staffed by this local nurse.  There seemed to be a great emphasis on anti- and post-natal care and encouraging breastfeeding.    I was much taken with this  poster showing a mother breastfeeding her baby whilst her husband did the ironing! The outside privy, whilst of the traditional type, was clean and private.

I was not surprised that DfID had decided to channel its funding through ARIS, which is model for genuine community empowerment.  I felt that development projects in the United Kingdom seeking to work with disadvantaged communities could learn a great deal from the approach. We took away with us ‘Best Practice Handbooks’ and an impressive document entitled ‘Women’s Realities, Stories from Experience’ which gave the stories of women who had taken the lead in various village micro-projects. This included the story of ‘Apple Village’ where the maths teacher and mother of five, who had divorced her husband as a result of his domestic violence, had the idea of cultivating fruit and vegetables so that the village of 250 families could eat more healthily.

Another tale of was of a teacher whose personal story involves a forced marriage to a husband “who is not against my public work”.  She was the driving force behind the construction of the village sports hall.  She says “with ARIS social mobilisation, residents of the village began to understand that by joining forces we can change our lives”. The projects give genuine responsibility to villagers with whom project workers work side-by-side, not taking over, as is so often the case in similar ventures in the UK.

The rest of our visit…

Most of the rest of our stay was spent meeting politicians NGOs.

According to the Electoral Commission, Ak Zhol, the political party of President Kurmanbek Bakiev, polled 47.9% of the votes and consequentially received 70% of the parliamentary seats. The main opposition party Ata Meken received 8.29% of the popular vote but was disqualified from receiving any parliamentary seats as they did not receive 0.5% of the vote in each province. This was a new hurdle introduced late in the process by the Electoral Commission.  A small number of seats were allocated to the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party on the basis of 5.05% and 5.12% of the vote respectively.  A minimum threshold is 5% and there is a widespread belief that manipulation took place to exclude Ata Meken, the seats being allocated to the SDP and the Communists to give a veil of credibility to the election results. The election was monitored by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) who reported that the election failed to meet international standards, particularly in regards to the lack of transparency in the counting and publication of results.

Head of Central Election Committee flees for her life…

At a reception organised by the British Ambassador, I met people associated with a group that went by the name ‘I Don’t Believe’ – a reference to the lack of credibility in the declared election results. They want the results published for each polling district. Our zeal in pressing the Head of the Central Election Committee on these points nearly led to a diplomatic incident and was only diffused when Lord Nazir Ahmed complemented her on the beauty of her tea service and lavish hospitality.  Although she stoutly defended the election process to us, we have since heard that she has fled the Country after it became known she was going to “spill the beans” on the gerrymandering that took place!  I don’t know whether our visit played any role in this!

I have to say that Nazir was particularly effective in bringing out the lighter sides of people’s personality - including getting the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament to sing us a song at the dinner she hosted!

Mental health services in Kyrgystan…

My last meeting was with a representative from a mental health.  She confirmed what we had been told by the Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, that the “Law on Psychiatric Aid and Guarantees of Citizens’ Rights” passed in 1999 did comply with international standards but was, unfortunately, not enforced. Corruption was rife and budgets allocated to hospitals and in-patient facilities were misused.  Patients were abused and often put to work to the financial benefit of those running the institutions.  In contrast, she praised the primary-care system which was funded through a National Insurance Fund.  Until recently this was run by the sister of the Deputy Prime Minister whom we had met and found impressive.   She had resigned when her sister was appointed to avoid accusations of a conflict of interest thus demonstrating there is some integrity in the political system.  The case was made for closure rather than reform of psychiatric institutions and for mental health to be run through the funded system. My informant’s organisation received funding from the Soros Foundation and had been involved in court actions against the Government for non-implementation of mental health legislation as well as providing advocacy in hospitals and implementing day-care programmes through primary-care centres. She was also sceptical about the election results and did not agree with the information given to us by the Head of the Central Election Commission that the practice of only publishing results at the regional level was in line with previous practice.

Postscript…

On the long journey back home, I read a book of poems by a woman poet, Tenti Adyshova. .The translators, from the Foreign Languages Institute of the International University of Kyrgystan, accosted us outside the Electoral Commission and were keen to have our views on their work.  I was fascinated by the story of this poet and the notes in the book explaining how Kyrgysh was not a written language until early in the twentieth century under Russian influence.  The poems were good too.  In accordance with the request to us, I have been in email correspondence with the Director of the Institute with some suggestions for improving the English translations and have passed on her request to collaborate with a UK university to the Head of English at Birmingham University, who is keen on the idea.  I hope this may be the start of ongoing relations between Birmingham and Kyrgystan!

 

 

A Kyrg loo, will these be a thing of the past on my next visit?!

 

 

 

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