Housing poverty in Tajikistan

+30,000 families served
+300 volunteers hosted
Projects: construction, training, land rights, disaster response

We have been fighting housing poverty in Tajikistan since 1999, seeking to generate impact at community- and social-levels to bring safe, affordable and decent housing to everyone.

To date, we have performed:

New house builds, repairs, and retrofits
Improved access to financial products
Advocacy efforts for social housing and land rights

The scope and scale of our local team’s work span from large-scale construction projects to the development of market-based housing products with the private sector, to directly assisting individual families with their housing concerns such as the promotion of secure tenure and housing rights of vulnerable groups.

Poor and economically fragile

Tajikistan remains one of the poorest and the most economically fragile countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union. Almost 50% of the population lives below the poverty line, on less than 2 dollars a day.

Lack of financial resources

This is only a fraction of the average in other post-Soviet countries.

Tajikistan also underwent a prolonged period of civil war and economic decline. As a result, living standards have gone down and a shortage of financial resources in the private sector and inadequate public budgets resulted in poor house maintenance.

Low housing stock

The state could no longer provide these services, and private owners had no funds to invest into property maintenance.

Tajikistan has a housing stock of 1.23 million units (2011, Habitat’s Housing Review 2013). This is only 163 dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants, which is the lowest level of all countries in the Europe and Central Asia region.

How we help alleviate housing poverty in Tajikistan

In Tajikistan, we are working in partnership with both local and international NGOs, microfinance institutions and governments. Having a strong community presence, we’ve implemented more than 30 projects in Tajikistan supporting most vulnerable and remote communities.

Currently, our team operates in 38 districts of three provinces of Tajikistan where more than 90% of the country’s population live.

Key facts & figures

Capital: Dushanbe

Main country facts: Independent since 1991

Population: 8.19 million

Urbanisation: 26.8 % live in cities

Life expectancy: 67.39 years

Unemployment rate: 2.5 %

Population living below poverty line: 35.6 %

Housing support services and micro-loans

Many families live in substandard living conditions, because they don’t have access to solutions of housing finance. The partnership between Habitat Tajikistan and microfinance institutions represents a unique response to the overwhelming housing demand. Our team has developed loans for home improvement and house constriction.

Often, these loans are taken out by women, who in the absence of their husbands need to care for the family and homes. Habitat engineers and construction specialists provide construction assistance to these women to help them understand the scope of work, select necessary materials and properly budget for the works. So far, we have supported more than 5,000 families with construction services and more than 15,000 people with construction support services across the country.

Promoting women's equal rights to housing and property

A study research by the OSCE shows that around 80 % of Tajik women in divorce cases are denied property rights and child support. We are implementing this project to tackle issues of Tajik women’s legal rights to legitimately own and inherit houses, land or other properties.

A series of activities is also being carried out, such as:

- Conduction of seminars & meetings
- Dissemination of educational materials
- Airing radio programmes
- Organising round tables on the subject of women equal rights to housing and property

This will contribute to increase the level of women’s awareness about their legal rights to adequate housing.

Every year, the level of poverty Tajikistan is exacerbated by tremors and earthquakes. Those who suffer the most live in sub-standard homes that cannot withstand quakes. Many houses that were devastated by the earthquake in July 2006 are still not completed and lack windows and/or doors.

We offer loans to improve insulation in apartments and houses as well as the training on more solid and safer buildings practices in the vulnerable area of Kumsangir district. Proper windows and doors will protect families from harsh winters.