CILT has been operating in Kazakhstan since 2017, and has now expanded to cover the Central Asia Region due to support funding awarded by USAID in 2018-19 for training and capacity building. Now in the second phase of the project (2020-21), the original plan was to continue to develop the strength and presence of CILT, grow the number of training opportunities and also to develop a business consultancy/support model.
Through careful re-planning, the project has now been re-scoped to address some of the key market needs arising from the Covid-19 crisis, and the programme repurposed to focus on supporting Small and Medium Enterprises across 5 countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). CILT Kazakhstan was also able to move swiftly to set up a series of ongoing Russian-speaking webinars to support business as well as providing access to the CILT International webinar series.
By transforming some of the Covid-19 related challenges into opportunities, CILT and its partners have been able to tackle the urgent business needs and skills issues in the Central Asia Region.
This short article reflects on the lessons learnt so far, and some of the exciting plans for the next 3 months. It also outlines the model we have developed for supporting the businesses coaches and mentors, as well as the SMEs themselves.
This is an example of industry analysis from the Central Asia Region which we are sharing as part of our global best practice resource to help you think about and determine appropriate responses locally.
