Central Asia

In Central Asia, addressing poverty and unemployment among women and youth is essential to creating inclusive food systems. The share of working-age people in the region’s population has been gradually increasing over several decades, and today a large cohort of young people and women cannot find employment and earn adequate income in their own countries. For example, in 2019, the unemployment rate for women in Uzbekistan stood at 12.8 percent, and the unemployment rate for youth (between the ages of 20 and 30) stood at 15 percent. In Central Asia’s rural areas, rates of unemployment for women and youth are significantly higher, which is reflected in high rural poverty rates. In the rural mountainous region of Naryn Province in Kyrgyzstan, for instance, youth (ages 15 to 29) unemployment stood at 22 percent in 2018, and for young women it was above 40 percent. Similar unemployment rates for youth and women are observed in rural areas of other Central Asian countries. Across the region, youth (ages 15 to 29) currently make up about 25 to 30 percent of the population, and this share is expected to remain high for the foreseeable future.