Kazakhstan Is Making Progress

     Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the dawn of the new millennium, the life expectancy around the world has been rising. Some of the most notable progress has been made in Central Asia, with the life expectancy rising by 3.9 years in Tajikistan, 6.4 years in Turkmenistan, 7.7 years in Uzbekistan, 8.2 years in Kyrgyzstan, and 10.9 years in Kazakhstan since 2000. By the end of the decade, the region's life expectancy is expected to be on par with the global level. People are living longer, and, therefore, it is imperative that we work to improve the quality of life for people.

     In Kazakhstan, at least, the past three years have seen steady progress toward this end. The first step to making progress is ensuring a functioning democracy, and President Tokayev has signed laws to allow citizens greater liberty to hold peaceful protests, to promote the establishment of a multi-party system, to establish a National Council on Public Trust to facilitate dialogue with civil society, to allow the direct election of local leaders, and to reduce the electoral threshold by nearly 30 percent. 

     In November 2019, he signed legislation that would force local leaders to resign if corruption occurred in their governments. Between December 2019 and January 2021, Kazakhstan took steps to, and ultimately succeeded in, the abolition of the death penalty. In August 2019, Kazakhstan announced the minimum wage for teachers would be doubled within the next four years and launched a program to assist children in rural and low-income areas. The wages for teachers, along with doctors and nurses, was further increased in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic; in September 2021, Kazakhstan announced it would increase its minimum wage by more than 75 percent, with plans for further increases in the future.

     In 2021, Kazakhstan introduced major legislation to control the import, export, and sale of tobacco; this followed after the nation instituted a mandatory health insurance program in 2020. Healthy people also require a healthy environment, and in 2020 he announced a pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, including ending Kazakhstan's heavy reliance on coal by 2035 an using 15 percent renewable energy by 2030. In 2019, he created a new government office called the Ministry of Ecology, Geology, and Natural Resources to protect the environment: in 2021, the office announced a plan to control air pollution in the nation's cities and a law that provided for the study and protection of the Caspian Sea.

     The fight is far from over, but it appears Kazakhstan is on the right track, with hundreds of more significant moves to run a clean and fair government, protect the environment, alleviate poverty, bolster education, and improve other aspects of life for the people of Kazakhstan.