Kyrgyzstanis living near uranium tailings will be able to apply for small grants to improve their quality of life

March 12, 2021

UNDP DRM program staff is delivering a training. Photo: UNDP Kyrgyzstan.

UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic’s project “Involvement of stakeholders in solving problems related to uranium tailings in Central Asia. Phase II”, funded by the European Union, launched the second round of small grant competition for non-governmental organizations in local communities located near uranium tailings ponds.

In this regard, the staff of the UNDP Disaster Risk Management program conducted training in target communities from February 24 to March 4, 2021, during which 62 participants, represented by employees of local NGOs and LSG authorities, mastered the skills of developing ideas and preparing applications for the implementation of small grant projects.

At the training, the participants conducted brainstorming sessions in focus groups, learned to correctly formulate the problem, established cause-and-effect relationships between problems, built a “problem tree” and turned the “problem tree” into a “goal tree”, and also worked with the logic diagram matrix.

Adina Sagyndykova, a participant from Mailuu-Suu, noted: “It is a very useful training that helps to see the problems and correctly outline the ways to solve them. I really liked the practical assignments in focus groups, which helped me to quickly understand the analysis of the problem. Received the basic knowledge necessary to prepare an application for a small grant."

The training participants will apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills in preparing an application for participation in the second round of the competition for the implementation of small grant projects.

The purpose of the implementation of small grant projects within the framework of this project is to reduce the negative impact of uranium tailings on the socio-economic and environmental aspects of the life of pilot communities: Mailuu-Suu, Min-Kush, Kadzhi-Sai, Orlovka, Ak-Tyuz, Sumsar, and Shekaftar, covered by the Strategic master plan on high poverty criteria, vulnerability to natural disasters, the impact of uranium sites and community interest in working together to implement activities under small grants program.

The small grants competition is now running until the end of March. All details on the application procedure can be found here.