The Board of Governors of CAREC is the main governing body of the organization. The Board consists of 13 members, it includes representatives of ministries, the business sector, international, donor and non-governmental organizations on an equal basis. For the 17 years, the members of the BG meet twice a year to discuss the achievements of CAREC and approve the key directions of the organization’s development.
The latest meeting of the Board of Governors was held on December 4th at CAREC head office in Almaty. The agenda of the meeting, which was the 41st in a row, was very intense. CAREC BG approved the renewed composition of the Board, discussed the achievements of CAREC for the period 2013-2018, the election of the new CAREC Executive Director and other issues.
According to the Charter, the Executive Director of CAREC is selected through an open competition for a period of three years, with the possibility of renewal for a second term, but not more than two consecutive terms. The current Executive Director, Dr Iskandar Abdullaev, began his duties in 2013. In March of the next year, the authority of Dr Abdullaev will be completed, and the members of the BG will have to elect a new Executive Director.
During the meeting, Dr Abdullaev presented the results of work for six years. Iskandar Abdullaev noted that CAREC became the leading regional centre of knowledge in the field of environment and sustainable development, the centre is recognized by national, regional and international partners. In the period from 2013 to 2018, CAREC created a number of dialogue platforms with the aim of expanding cooperation on various environmental issues: the Central Asian International Environmental Forum, Central Asian Climate Change Conference, the Meeting of Parliamentarians and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Representatives. “Despite the existing problems, thanks to a sustainable competitive advantage, CAREC has great potential to launch new projects, thematic areas and create new connections to ensure a sustainable future for the region,” said Dr Abdullaev.
It is also worth noting that in 6 years the CAREC project portfolio has changed significantly: from a large number of projects with a small budget, the centre has shifted to implementing large-scale projects. Over the past period, with the support of development partners and national partners, CAREC has launched several mega-projects: CAMP4ASB, Smart Waters, UzWAterAware, CAWECOOP (completed in 2017), Nexus, Blue Peace Central Asia. These projects form 87% of the CAREC budget for 2013-2018.
In addition, the Executive Director of CAREC presented the strategy for further strategic development of CAREC 2020-2025. Dr Iskandar Abdullaev noted that one of the important tasks of the centre for the next period is to strengthen the coordination of the national and regional priorities of the Central Asian countries, global priorities and the mandate of CAREC. The Executive Director also stressed the need for structural changes in the CAREC head office: instead of teams in thematic areas, there should be operational groups in functional areas. In addition, it was proposed to reform the offices of CAREC into innovative clusters, which will serve as knowledge centres at the national and regional level.
The members of the BG thanked Dr Abdullaev for the work done and discussed in detail the vacancy for the Executive Director position. In this regard, CAREC has introduced an innovative approach, this time applications will be accepted through the E-recruitment system. The system allows you to collect applications centrally and select the candidates online.
Separately, it is worth noting that this year the authorities of several members of the BG were completed, they are: Mukhammet Durikov, Rauf Sabitov, Kurbonjon Kabutov, Saidrasul Sanginov. During the meeting, members of the BG approved new members nominated by countries: Svetlana Mogilyuk, Zulfuhar Zholdasov, Alikhon Latifi, Jumamyrat Saparmuradov and Sadirzhan Dzhakbarov. In the same year, the term of duty of the Chairman of the CAREC Board of Governers, Mr Mukhammet Durikov, expired. Mr Durikov made a presentation on the activities of the BG in the period 2012-2018. Mukhammet Durikov stressed that the main principles of the work of the CAREC Board of Governors are: openness, focus on the final result, the priority of the environmental approach over sectoral or national interests, as well as constructiveness and transparency.
Over the past period, the members of the BG approved a number of important strategic documents: the CAREC Development Strategy 2014-2020, the CAREC Change Concept, the CAREC Interaction Concept with the Central Asian NGOs, the CAREC Country Office Development Strategy. Besides, in 2016, the SU resumed the activities of the Public Advisory Board of CAREC. The main role of PAB is to provide expert support to CAREC’s activities at the national, regional and international levels. This includes the development of projects and strategic documents, as well as representing the interests of CAREC.
In addition, over the past period, the members of the BG have supported the organizational development of CAREC. The Council was directly involved in the opening of CAREC offices in Kazakhstan (2015) and Turkmenistan (2014). The members of the BG expressed their gratitude to Mr Durikov for the work done and the chairmanship of the BG over the past 6 years, for his contribution to CAREC activities, as well as for impartiality and objectivity in the work. Zulfukhar Zholdasov, a representative of the public sector in Kazakhstan, was elected as a Chairman of the Board of Governors.
At the end of the meeting, the BG members gave the task to CAREC to prepare a strategic development plan for 2020-2025. This plan will be discussed at the next meeting of the CAREC Board of Governors in March 2019.