DUSHANBE, December 24, 2009, Asia-Plus  - The Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) in collaboration with European Center for Eco and Agro Tourism (ECEAT) and Welt Hunger Hilfe (WHH) facilitated a roundtable entitled “Towards an Effective Organization of Tourism in Tajikistan” at the Vefa Centre in Dushanbe last week, according to the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) Tajikistan.

Funded by European Commission, the discussion was attended by officials from the Government of Tajikistan, members of local civil society and international organizations.

The roundtable aimed to exchange and update information on tourism situation in Tajikistan, on how to engage national and international tourism service providers, and how to enhance cooperation and marketing linkages between Tajik and European tourism associations and tour operators.  Further, the discussion shed light upon how the Government of Tajikistan supports the promotion of tourism in the country.

Lochin Faizulloyev, the deputy head of the Committee for Youth, Sports and Tourism Affairs, noted that it is first time that the government has categorized tourism visa in a special category and has simplified the visa obtaining procedures for over 80 countries. To safeguard favorable legal, organizational and economical environment for tourism industry in Tajikistan, the Government has developed a Concept of Tourism Development of the Country for the period of 2009-2019 and the Tourism Development Program for 2010-2014.

The meeting participants also included the European Centre for Eco and Agro Tourism (ECEAT), Welt Hunger Hilfe (WHH), Pamirs Eco Cultural Tourism Association (PECTA), MSDSP, Zerafshan Development Tourism Association (ZDTA), National Association of Entrepreneurs and others.  The private sector representatives agreed to strengthen their cooperation and organizational capacity at a national level.

Being a major event focused on the notion of ‘Tourism’ in the country, this round table meant to be a space for bringing together peoples who work jointly towards making Tajikistan as a tourism destination. “…and holding such round table discussions, undoubtedly, enables something like ‘synchronization of watches’ and betterment of further collaboration for achieving common goal-stable development of tourism industry,” Faizulloyev remarked

The Aga Khan Foundation is part of Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of development agencies founded and guided by His Highness the Aga Khan. Established in 1967 in Geneva, Switzerland, AKF is a non-denominational, international development agency with branches, affiliates and representative offices in 20 countries.  In Tajikistan AKF has been active since 1993 when, with the support of the international donor community, a response was mounted in Gorno Badakhshan to imminent food shortages caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union.  In parallel with this emergency program, AKF initiated a rural development program with the aim of contributing to poverty alleviation in the program areas. Programs for reform in the social sector (Health and Education) were introduced in 1994, with the aim of assisting the government to cope more efficiently with reduced resources while at the same time benefiting from new approaches in education and health.