Tajikistan, with the lowest per capita Gross Domestic Product among the 15 former Soviet republics, and an unofficial estimated unemployment and underemployment rate of more than 30 percent, retains a volatile political atmosphere hindering its development and growth. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank estimates that almost 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, whereas UNDP estimates that at least one million people depend on food aid to survive, mainly because of drought. Tajikistan hosts at least 12,000 refugees from neighbouring countries, but several thousand Tajiks were also living abroad. According to the ADB, an estimated 200,000 people left the country in 2001, going to the Russian Federation in search of work.

With the conclusion of peace process in 2000 after the end of a five-year civil war since it gained independence in 1991 from the USSR, Tajikistan has embarked on rebuilding the economy. According to the ADB, in 2001, contrary to all expectations, economic growth accelerated to 10 percent, up from 8.3 percent in the previous year. However, the bank has forecast that economic growth will taper off in 2002 to a projected six percent and to five percent in 2003.

Tajikistan hopes for improving the economic situation and helping its impoverished people hinge on political stability. But disgruntled former opposition commanders continue to pose a threat to the coalition government. Violent crime and the narcotics trade have contributed to tension in the country. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, once allied with Tajik opposition forces, has used Tajikistan as a staging ground for its operations against the secular Uzbek government, aggravating regional relations that were already strained by differences over the use of water and energy resources. The Tajiks were the last Persian-speaking empire to rule Central Asia.

Tajikistan became fully established under Soviet control with the creation of Tajikistan as an autonomous Soviet socialist republic within Uzbekistan in 1924, and as one of the independent Soviet socialist republics in 1929. Civil war broke out the year after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and the fighting claimed more than 50,000 lives. The fighting, which pitted the post-communist government against a loose alliance known as the United Tajik Opposition, ended with a UN-brokered peace settlement in 1997. A new government coalition headed by President Emomali Rahmanov includes opposition members in the parliament and cabinet. Tajikistan is the only country in the region that continues to permit a Russian military presence to guard its border with Afghanistan.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been engaged in repatriation efforts since the end of the war, which prompted the exodus of non-Tajik minorities and Tajiks alike. Land mines placed by Uzbekistan along the Tajik border are responsible for civilian deaths.

Tajikistan is the poorest country in Central Asia and is vulnerable to earthquakes and drought. It depends largely on aid from Russia, Uzbekistan and the international humanitarian assistance for much of its basic subsistence needs. Foreign revenue is precariously dependent upon exports of cotton and aluminium. Lucrative drug trafficking has ensured the rise of an influential criminal class. Heroin and opium from Afghanistan transit Tajikistan en route to Russian and European markets, leaving behind crime, corruption and a corresponding rise in HIV infection.

Links to other sources

Interactive Central Asia Resource Project

US Committee for Refugees

US State Department Backgrond Notes