The objectives of the Strengthening Critical Infrastructure Against Natural Hazards Project for Tajikistan are to strengthen Tajikistan’s disaster risk management capacities, enhance the resilience of its critical infrastructure against natural hazards, and improve its capacity to respond to disasters.
Given its high mountain terrain, geology, climate and hydrological features, Tajikistan is highly prone to natural disasters and has a long history of severe floods, earthquakes, landslides, mudflows, avalanches, droughts, and heavy snowfalls. The social and economic impacts from such disasters are significant and remain a persistent obstacle to poverty reduction and sustainable development. During 1992–2016, economic losses from natural disasters cost Tajikistan an estimated $1.8 billion, affecting almost seven million people. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this, with Tajikistan facing more intense glacier melting and extreme weather events. It ranks first in terms of vulnerability to climate change in Europe and Central Asia.
In 2017 the World Bank allocated a credit of $25 million and a grant of $25 million to Tajikistan to help protect lives and livelihoods from natural disasters, increase resilience to climate change and strengthen local capacity to manage disaster risk. With this support, Tajikistan is rebuilding key infrastructure in two regions, Khatlon and Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO), which suffered major floods and mudflows in July 2015.
There are three components to the project, the first component is strengthening the Government of Tajikistan's capacity for disaster risk management (DRM) through selected activities that focus on disaster risk identification, disaster preparedness, and financial protection against disasters. This includes construction of a national crisis management center and installation of associated ICT systems. The second component is making critical infrastructure resilient against natural hazards. This component finances capital works and contingency planning (for example, procurement of equipment for managing hazards) for the transportation network in GBAO, which suffered the most significant damage in July 2015, as well as the flood protection infrastructure that has repeatedly been damaged in the Khatlon Oblast. The third component is a contingent emergency response component to enhance Tajikistan’s capacity to respond to disasters. An emergency eligible for financing is an event that has caused, or is likely imminently to cause, a major adverse economic and/or social impact to the Borrower, associated with a disaster.