Scenes from 2024 FFD Forum Plenary: Kyrgyzstan’s INFF experience

Mr. Sanzhar Bolotov, Deputy Minister of Economy and Commerce, Ministry of Economy and Commerce, Kyrgyzstan joined the FfD Forum Plenary Session on “Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFFs): Taking stock of national-level progress” held on Thursday, 25th April 2024 in New York.

The Deputy Minister highlighted the role of Kyrgyzstan’s INFF in aligning national development priorities with financing policies, enabling effective resource mobilization from public and private sectors. Kyrgyzstan has used its INFF to foster collaboration among stakeholders, pushing for sustainable principles in infrastructure projects, catalyzing regulatory reforms, promoting transparency, and attracting private investments through innovative financing mechanisms such as green bonds, social bonds, and blended finance models. The activities undertaken by Kyrgyzstan’s INFF align with the country’s national development strategy and aim to increase investments in social infrastructure.

The full transcript of the speech is attached below:

Dear Distinguished Delegates and participants today, 

The Kyrgyz Republic demonstrates significant progress in various areas of sustainable development.

Just for the first quarter of this year, our GDP growth was 8.3%, and for the last three years, the average growth was more than 6%. In this context, INFFs play a pivotal role in getting the country's development trajectory towards achieving the SDGs. By providing a comprehensive framework for aligning national development priorities with the financing strategies, INFFs enable Kyrgyzstan to mobilize resources effectively from both public and private sectors. This ensures that investments are directed towards areas that  have the greatest impact on sustainable development such as education, healthcare, infrastructure, and environmental conservation.

Additionally, INFFs facilitate collaboration between government agencies, development partners, and the private sector, fostering a coordinated approach to SDGs implementation. Through this collaborative effort, Kyrgyzstan has leveraged diverse expertise and resources to address complex development challenges and to accelerate progress towards achieving the SDGs.

INFF pushed for the integration of sustainable development principles into the planning and execution of infrastructure projects. This includes considering environmental, social, and economic aspects in project decision-making, contributing to sustainable development and the achievement of the SDGs. Overall, the INFF has served as a catalyst for institutional regulatory reforms aimed at improving the execution of infrastructure projects.

These reforms focus on enhancing coordination, increasing transparency, simulating private sector participation, and integrating sustainable development into infrastructure projects. INFF in Kyrgyzstan fosters partnership between public and private sectors for financing and implementing infrastructure projects, creating and conductive investment environment improving legislation on PPPs, which have been part of the reform inspired by INFF. We promote principle of transparency and openness in infrastructure project implementation.

As a result of monitoring and reporting mechanisms have been introduced to provide clearer insights into fund totalization and project progress. This has enhanced trust from both the public and investors, and strengthened the cooperation among various government agencies and partners for development. To scale affordable long-term financing for investment in the SDGs, government prioritized the resource allocation to SDG related projects and infrastructure development. This includes investing in sectors such as renewable energy, health, education, and sustainable infrastructure to drive sustainable development.

We created an enabling environment for private investments by reducing regulatory barriers and by providing guarantees to mitigate risks, and exploring and implementing innovative financing mechanisms such as green bonds, social bonds, and blended finance models, which can motivate the private sector to implement these compliant projects.

We hope and trust that all these activities will further support our  national development strategy, implementing our activities and support us to increase the investments into social infrastructure.

Thank you.