The context of governance reforms in Kazakhstan

Since 2000, Kazakhstan has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Despite the 2008 global financial crisis, Kazakhstan’s economy continued to deliver positive results. Building on this success, Kazakhstan has set a new long-term target to join the rank of the top 30 developed countries by 2050. Yet despite remarkable recent transformation, Kazakhstan is facing a number of challenges which can undermine the sustainability of the country and its ability to achieve this objective. These include growing regional disparities in wealth distribution, a persistently high poverty rate, particularly in rural areas, corruption, challenges in ensring the rule of law and quality of democratic institutions, limited human capital and limited citizen participation in policy processes. As such implementing governance reforms to advance the effective functioning and capacities of government institutions, reduce corruption and enable the rule of law in a context of greater openness and democratisation will be critical for the country to implement its ambitious vision and objectives. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a historical and broad socio-economic context in order to situate the current governance reforms in Kazakhstan and the recommendations of the current review.