A group of civil society organizations (CSOs) has published a “shadow report” to accompany Kyrgyzstan’s Voluntary National Review (VNR) presented to the 2020 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). The report evaluates the country’s progress towards each of the SDGs, and offers recommendations on how to improve implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Kyrgyzstan.

The report by the Forum of Women’s NGOs of Kyrgyzstan titled, ‘Review of the Implementation of the SDG in the Kyrgyz Republic,’ commends Kyrgyzstan’s VNR for including problems and commitments on the next steps for each SDG. It notes that CSOs “made a significant contribution to the fairly high level of objectivity of the report.” At the same time, the CSO warn that the VNR “didn’t cover all aspects of the commitments taken” by Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the 2030 Agenda.

The report notes that Kyrgyzstan is behind on almost all of the SDGs. It identifies integration and coordination, short-term approaches, insufficient capacity of the public sector, and weak accountability from the government among the key problems, and highlights COVID-19 impacts on SDG achievement in the country. It also finds that the VNR leaves means of implementation “without serious attention.”

The CSOs rate Kyrgyzstan’s progress on each of the Goals on a scale from one to five according to eight criteria of the Action for Sustainable Development (A4SD) People’s Scorecard 2020: 1) availability of a policy or legal framework; 2) plans and strategies; 3) commitment by government agencies; 4) implementation; 5) capacity building; 6) monitoring, evaluation, and reporting; 7) transparency and accountability; and 8) overall progress. For example, on SDG 5 (gender equality), Kyrgyzstan has a score of four in terms of policy or legal framework availability but only two for implementation, capacity building, and overall progress, among other parameters. The report warns that many Goals are “rated below average in terms of achievement.”

The CSO report offers 16 recommendations for the government to achieve better implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including:

• Develop a plan to address problems related to SDG implementation, with annual operational reporting;
• Ensure institutionalized participation of CSOs in further planning, implementation, and monitoring of SDG implementation;
• Introduce multi-stakeholder partnership as a mandatory approach to achieve all Goals;
• Develop mechanisms for introducing the necessary means of implementation for each Goal; and
• Improve the quality of indicators for each Goal and introduce specific indicators of success.

The report was produced with support from A4SD, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and the Global Fund for Women. [Publication: Review of the Implementation of the SDG in the Kyrgyz Republic] [Kyrgyzstan’s VNR]