Publication: Tajikistan Poverty and Equity Assessment 2025: Transformation at Home
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2025-09-19
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2025-10-01
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Prior to independence, Tajikistan’s role within the Soviet Union (1928–1991) was primarily that of an agrarian republic supplying cotton (often referred to as white gold), minerals, labor migrants, and soldiers. Cotton production was intensively water-consuming and sustained through large-scale irrigation projects initiated by the Soviet government. Tajikistan was also rich in hydropower, which benefited from these irrigation projects. The country’s mountainous terrain offered mineral resources such as gold, silver, and uranium, but a lack of infrastructure and industrial capacity limited the potential of the mining industry. Though not seen in the same numbers post-independence, labor migration from Tajikistan to Russia started during Soviet times, long before Tajikistan’s independence in 1991. Seasonal and permanent labor migrated to more industrialized regions in the Soviet Union. In addition, Tajik soldiers, estimated to number about 260,000, fought in key battles during World War II, such as the Battle of Stalingrad, the Siege of Leningrad, and the liberation of Eastern Europe. In the Cold War period following World War II, Tajikistan remained heavily militarized, particularly during the time of the Soviet Afghan War (1979–1989). Since gaining independence, Tajikistan has been charting its own course, shaped by resilience and struggle. The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent independence of Tajikistan in September 1991 led to a severe economic downturn. A brutal civil war from 1992 to 1997 further devastated the country’s economy, with Tajikistan’s GDP shrinking by more than 60 percent compared with its pre-independence levels. Post-civil war recovery began in the late 1990s with agricultural revival, especially in cotton production, alongside remittance inflows from labor migrants to the Russian Federation. Despite this recovery, by the end of the 2000s the economy had merely returned to pre-independence levels, marked by limited industrialization and heavy reliance on remittance inflows. The previous Poverty Assessment covered the growth and poverty stories up to 2009. This subsequent Core Analytics of Poverty and Equity Assessment (CAPEA) tells the story of Tajikistan’s remarkable journey of progress and perseverance over the past decade, and provides policy recommendations for the coming years to meet the country’s aspiration of achieving middle-income status by 2030.
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“World Bank. 2025. Tajikistan Poverty and Equity Assessment 2025: Transformation at Home. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43794 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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