ACTED has been present in Tajikistan since 1996, contributing to addressing the country’s main challenges and fostering opportunities for sustainable and inclusive development, especially in rural and remote communities. Throughout the years, ACTED has used a participatory, inclusive and multi-sectorial approach to respond to emergencies, build disaster resilience, strengthen civil society, and foster the inclusion of women and marginalized groups.
Tajikistan faces a range of humanitarian and developmental challenges. The country is highly exposed to the effects of climate change. Natural disasters (such as floods, droughts, landslides and mudflows) regularly destroy land, crops, public infrastructure and severely affect the livelihoods of rural populations. Tajikistan remains heavily dependent on small-scale agriculture and 53% of the population is employed in this sector. More than 80% of the agricultural lands are relying on rainfall only. As a result of Tajikistan’s high vulnerability to disasters, food insecurity and insufficient nutrition affect rural populations and in particular women and children. Gender inequality and the exclusion of marginalised groups remain an issue. In addition, ongoing instability in neighbouring Afghanistan continues to affect Tajikistan and increasing numbers of refugees enter the country.
Through economic development projects, ACTED Tajikistan aims to increase income-generating opportunities and tackle the high outbound labor migration and dependency on remittances. ACTED also seeks to improve the environment especially for small-scale businesses through regional Community-based Tourism projects and participates on creating an effective value chain in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. In addition, in order to enable people to face the frequent natural disasters and to promote local livelihoods, ACTED aims to improve natural water and land resource management. At a community level, ACTED Tajikistan works on climate adaptation and mitigation though integrated management of natural recourses and Watershed management. Also, ACTED Tajikistan is involved in strengthening civil society to co-construct an effective governance and to implement sustainable development principles. Finally, ACTED Tajikistan is committed to the promotion of gender equality and supports survivors and victims of domestic violence.
A specificity of ACTED Tajikistan is also the creation in 2001 of the Bactria Cultural Centre which implements and supports a wide variety of educational and cultural activities in the country.
In order to better address the challenges and issues of the society in modern-day Tajikistan, ACTED Tajikistan together with its sister organisation Bactria Cultural Centre decided to push for the idea of developing the ‘3Zero House Dushanbe’, a unique space and initiative to foster social entrepreneurship and diverse intervention based on synergies with other organisations.
In line with ACTED’s 3Zero programmatic strategy, the idea for a 3Zero House in Dushanbe was developed a year ago, when ACTED Tajikistan decided to take the 3Zero Agenda to the next level. In Tajikistan, the 3Zero House will serve three core functions: gather, strengthen and grow. Therefore, the 3Zero House Dushanbe will be a collaborative hub in which ACTED and Bactria will unite diverse stakeholders to create synergies and working together towards a Zero Exclusion, Zero Carbon and Zero Poverty Tajikistan. In order to achieve this, ACTED and Bactria will undergo a comprehensive internal transformation and merge their operations once again to create one shared 3Zero House in order to create a conducive environment for social entrepreneurship and partnership.