Kazakhstan to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan

Kazakhstan plans to render $2 million worth of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan this year, Tengrinews reports.

Kazakhstan has set aside nearly $2 million worth of food products from its national food reserve and will supply the food to Afghanistan as humanitarian aid, Kazakhstan Minister of Emergency Situations said reporting to the Parliament yesterday.

During the year 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Emergency Situation provided humanitarian aid 6 times to countries suffering from different large-scale disasters. The aid worth nearly $1 million went to Guatemala, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.

In the previous years Kazakhstan provided aid to Turkey, Japan and Somalia. 

Back in 2013, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev told the Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan Jan Kubis that Kazakhstan was ready to continue providing assistance to Afghanistan through different projects aimed at the country’s development, including education of Afghan students in Kazakhstan's universities. 179 students arrived in Kazakhstan in 2011 as part of the education program for young people from Afghanistan. Kunduz-Talukan road in Afghanistan was constructed at Kazakhstan’s expense.

Vladimir Bozhko added that $2.1 million were allocated to help Russia to restore socially significant facilities affected by the large-scale flooding in Far-Eastern Federal District in Q4, 2013. The money was allocated to construct a kindergarten for 240 children in the city of Blagoveshchensk.

Kazakhstan has long been viewed by the UN as an emerging humanitarian aid leader in the region. Kazakhstan participated in the international exhibition Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development in 2012 offering Kazakh-made goods of high demand for the international humanitarian aid market. Then In 2013 the country unveiled a plan to create an official Kazakhstani humanitarian agency Kaz Aid in Almaty to further its humanitarian efforts and obtain a regional hub status with the UN.

Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev, writing by Assel Satubaldina, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina