Improving climate resilience of vulnerable communities and enabling conditions for local climate action in Tajikistan

Tajikistan is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in Central Asia, where droughts, floods, heatwaves, landslides, and glacial retreat threaten rural communities whose livelihoods depend on climate-sensitive agriculture and water resources. These impacts fall hardest on households experiencing food insecurity, with women, youth, and people with disabilities often facing the greatest risks. Although national frameworks such as the National Adaptation Plan provide a basis for adaptation, climate risks are not yet adequately integrated into local planning, investment, and service delivery, leaving local responses reactive, fragmented, and underfunded.

The project addresses these gaps by strengthening district-level adaptation planning and translating national adaptation priorities into locally identified adaptation investments. It combines institutional capacity-building, climate risk-informed District Adaptation Plans, and improved climate information services with investments in climate-resilient water management, climate-smart technologies, value-added processing, stronger market linkages, and livelihood diversification, particularly for women.

The project is expected to affect around 73,500 people directly – almost half of which are women – and to benefit 205,000 indirectly. It will capture and share lessons through knowledge platforms to support replication and scaling. By shifting Tajikistan from reactive crisis management toward proactive, climate-resilient development, the project supports vulnerable communities and reinforces country ownership while advancing GCF’s strategic priorities on food systems and the strengthening of national and subnational adaptation planning.