Housing availability has been one of Tajikistan’s key challenges. The country has a rapidly growing population, but limited land resources due to the mountainous landscape, high seismicity and soils prone to landslides.
Reform of the housing sector started in 2009 following a Presidential Decree on improvement of the administrative procedures related to construction. A new Urban Code was adopted in 2012; and procedures have been streamlined for administrative tasks associated with construction. The Government also issued a decree on energy efficiency in housing and communal services.
As a result of these reforms, housing construction doubled after 2009, with almost 100 thousand square metres of new construction each year. The main challenges now for the Government are to put in place effective management of multi-apartment houses, establish working mechanisms for the housing financing, ensure an effective investment policy, create conditions for supporting homeowners, and fund the rehabilitation of the water supply and sewerage system.
These and other issues related to the housing and land management policies in Tajikistan were discussed at the launch of the UNECE Country Profile on housing and land management for Tajikistan. The event took place on 14 May in Dushanbe and brought together national and international stakeholders who discussed the policy recommendations on housing and land management as well as current and possible future cooperation activities. The meeting decided to elaborate an action plan aimed to support putting into practice Country profile policy recommendations as well as to set up an interagency coordination group to monitor the action plan implementation.
The launch event was organized by Tajikistan’s Agency on Construction and Architecture, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the World Bank (Dushanbe office) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The UNECE Country Profile on Housing and Land Management in Tajikistan is available in English and Russian at: www.unece.org/index.php?id=27165.
For more information, please contact:
Gulnara Roll, Head
Housing and Land Management Unit
Trade and Sustainable Land Management Division
[email protected]
Note to editors
UNECE country profiles analyse in detail the housing and land management situation in countries and highlight issues that are of particular concern to the country. They also make practical recommendations to the government on how to improve the country’s housing and land policies.