In 2008 UNDP initiated an interagency process of assessing and responding to the regional risks facing Central Asia in response to the severe risks faced by vulnerable populations in Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic during the exceptionally hard winter of 2007/08 following on a regional drought in 2007. The first stage of this process consisted of a meeting of representatives of the international community in Almaty in July 2008 and the preparation of a Central Asia Regional Risk Assessment report, published in January 2009. The goal of the 2008 meeting and of the initial report was to issue “a call to action, and a framework within which concrete, agency-level actions can be developed.” A key objective of CARRA was to achieve enhanced sharing of information and improved coordination in the assessment and response to compound risks, between the UN as well as other international agencies at the country and regional levels in Central Asia.

This first CARRA report looked at the degree and implications of water, energy and food insecurity in Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic; developed proposals to improve governments’ and international agencies’ preparedness to respond to these insecurities; explored the prospects for regional cooperation in addressing these shared risks; considered options for monitoring hydrological and meteorological trends in the region and the creation of a regional early warning system; and explored how to develop more effective links between disaster prevention, humanitarian response, early recovery and longer-term development programming.