By End of Year, Kyrgyz Authorities Want to Insure All Houses in the Country

The Chairman of the Kyrgyzstan Cabinet of Ministers, Akylbek Japarov, instructed specialized government agencies to ensure the safety of all houses in the country, especially those in mudflow-prone areas. At the meeting devoted to natural disaster risk management, Japarov assigned specialized government agencies to ensure the safety of all houses in Kyrgyzstan. Thus, according to the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, the authorities will provide financial protection to citizens in case of natural disasters. This year, powerful mudslides flooded the south of Kyrgyzstan and the Issyk-Kul region. Over 5,000 households, dozens of social facilities, and hundreds of kilometers of roads were damaged. “Insurance will provide financial protection for citizens in such situations and minimize the consequences for families who lost their homes. Insurance will be an important tool to help people recover faster from natural disasters and reduce the burden on the state budget,” Japarov said. The head of the Cabinet emphasized that due to global warming, the number of natural disasters will continue to grow. Compulsory home insurance will ensure protection for citizens. It should be noted that the law on compulsory real estate insurance came into force in Kyrgyzstan on August 26, 2024. According to the law, residents must insure their real estate against fire and natural disasters. The State Insurance Organization (SIO) explained to The Times of Central Asia that legislative changes would be implemented gradually. The law on compulsory home insurance was first adopted in 2016, but the authorities postponed its implementation. There is no system of fines for lack of such insurance, at least not yet. “It is not profitable for private firms to engage in home insurance, as the rate is only 0.12%. That is, the cost of insurance is KGS 600 ($8), while payouts can be multi-million: KGS 500,000 ($6,000) for a village and KGS 1 mln ($12,000) for a city. Today in Kyrgyzstan, 143 thousand residences are insured,” the SIO noted.

Countries of Central Asia Team up as Threat of Natural Disasters Grows

Central Asia is vulnerable to a panoply of natural hazards: Floods, landslides, droughts, sandstorms, avalanches and earthquakes. Countries in the region increasingly seek to collaborate on early warning systems and other emergency precautions, especially since disasters can spill across borders and because the effects of climate change are intensifying. To that end, the heads of the national emergency departments of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met last week in Cholpon-Ata, a lakeside resort town in northern Kyrgyzstan whose attractions include ancient petroglyphs showing deer, leopards and hunting scenes. Turkmenistan´s flag – green expanse, red stripe with designs and white crescent and stars - was on display in the conference hall, though official announcements did not mention the presence of any delegation from the reclusive Turkmen government. The goal was to share information and experience, and deepen cooperation among the emergency agencies of those Central Asian countries, said Maj. Gen. Boobek Azhikeev, Kyrgyzstan’s minister of emergency situations. The five nations, which have a total of approximately 75 million people and encompass four million square kilometers, face growing risks from natural disasters, and the region has been warming faster than the global average according to a report released in May by the U.N. agency for the coordination of disaster risk reduction and the U.N. Development Programme. The two U.N. bodies, which helped to support the Central Asia meeting on the shores of Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul on Aug. 15, also mentioned human-made hazards, such as industrial accidents, chemical waste facilities in densely populated areas, and severe air pollution in major cities in all the countries. “Many disaster risk management systems are still reactive, not proactive. Early warning processes are often fragmented, and poorly integrated into countries' development strategies and policies for risk-informed decision-making,” the U.N. agencies said. “There is a lack of anticipation of new and emerging risks, insufficient monitoring and forecasting, and limited financial and technological support. Early warning communication and dissemination are often unclear, especially for the most vulnerable.” The private sector and media can also get more involved in ways of reducing the risk from disasters, they said. The U.N. agencies also noted progress, saying Tajikistan had taken the lead in Central Asia in rolling out an early warning system focused on monitoring, forecasting, communication and other measures. Earlier this month TCA reported that the head of Tajikistan’s committee for emergency situations and civil defense, Rustam Nazarzada, stated that the economic damage caused by natural disasters in the country has amounted to over $12 million in this year alone. Additionally, Uzbekistan is updating an early warning system in the populous, economically important Ferghana valley that will promptly disseminate weather forecasts. Central Asian countries have sought to coordinate on environmental issues in the past, sometimes with mixed results. But the sense of urgency is growing. Earlier this year, Kyrgyzstan was among countries that sent aid to Kazakhstan after floods there that the Kazakh president described as the worst natural disaster in 80 years. Kazakhstan, in turn, sent tons of humanitarian aid to Kyrgyzstan after...