At the end of last week, a Regional Environmental Summit was held in Astana. Special attention was paid to the panel session 'From Climate Risks to Business Opportunities: The New Economy of Sustainable Development in Central Asia.'
The discussion was attended by UN Resident Coordinator in Kazakhstan Sarango Radnaragcha, Chairperson of the Management Board of Halyk Bank and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the UN Global Compact Network in Central Asia Umut Shayakhmetova, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Network in Central Asia Dinara Seidzhaparova, and others.
The key focus of the session was that the climate agenda in Central Asia is no longer exclusively an environmental issue. Today, it is a matter of investment sustainability, economic modernization, resource management, and the region's long-term competitiveness.
Umut Shayakhmetova emphasized that sustainable development must move from the category of declarations to the category of economic decisions. According to her, Central Asia needs not only ambitious goals but also clear market mechanisms that can make 'green' projects investment-attractive for private capital.
'There is enough capital in the world to solve the key challenges of sustainable development, and the issue is not a lack of money, but what humanity chooses to allocate it to. Funds that today go to armaments, inefficient spending, and corruption can and should be redirected to solving real human problems,' Shayakhmetova said.
She noted that the financial sector can play a key role in shaping a new growth model by creating incentives, reducing investment barriers, and launching long-term mechanisms for financing sustainable projects. Among practical solutions, the head of Halyk proposed considering the introduction of a system of tax preferences at the regional level for projects in clean energy, water infrastructure, and resource efficiency.
