This conversation took place at the 2025 OECD Latin American Rural Development Conference, Rural-Urban Connections: Pathways to Sustainable Development, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 25-28 November 2025.
Blurb
Rural populations are shrinking. In 11 of the 29 OECD countries included in the OECD Reinforcing Rural Resilience report, rural populations are declining, not only as percentage of national populations but also in absolute numbers. Rural regions close to cities are also exposed to this trend, particularly if their populations tend more easily to move to urban areas. Despite not being an OECD Member country, Kazakhstan is experiencing similar trends. During the Soviet Union, its urban population was 53% but today that percentage has increased to 63%. Now only 37% of its population is living in rural areas, with only 5% of its GDP coming from the agricultural sector.
Discussing all things decentralisation, digitalisation and democracy in Kazakhstan, Shayne MacLachlan from the OECD has a conversation with Zhanerke Kochiigit. This conversation took place at the 2025 OECD Latin American Rural Development Conference, Rural-Urban Connections: Pathways to Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Have a listen.
To learn more, visit OECD Latin American Rural Development Conference and the OECD’s work on Rural Development. Find out more on these topics by reading Reinforcing Rural Resilience and Rural Innovation Pathways.
Transcript
Host
Welcome to OECD Podcast, where policy meets people.
Shayne
Hello and welcome to OECD Podcast. We’re here in Rio at the OECD Rural Development Conference and I’m joined today by an expert on rural policy, Zhanerke Kochiigit, who’s going to talk to us and unravel a lot of the elements of rural policy in Kazakhstan. So, we’re going to really travel today and hopefully learn a lot. So Zhanerke, I mean you’ve traveled from Astana to Rio, from Kazakhstan to Brazil. I understand that it took quite some time and effort to get here. What was involved in your trip?
Zhanerke
So first when I saw that there will be a conference on rural development by OECD in Latin America, I thought, “Oh, it’s amazing to participate in such a conference!”, and we tried to apply. First of all, I thought that the conference will be closed, so not many people can participate. But I was amazed that this was open for everyone and I’ve registered and I was disturbing Betty-Ann and Elena many times asking, “Really, am I registered? Can I participate in the conference? Is it free?”, so many questions.
And when we received our confirmation of the registration, so we started to book our flights and it was really a very long journey. So it took us about more than three days to get to Rio. First of all, we fled from Astana to Georgia, Kutaisi City. And after Kutaisi City, we took a plane to Rome and we stayed a night there, just take a rest after the flight, two flights. And after Rome the next day, we fly to Lisbon.
The evening we were at Lisbon, we also have an nap in Lisbon. And the next day morning, we fly to Rio and it was a 10 hour flight. But it is amazing. I’m first time in Brazil, first time in Rio. It’s very beautiful city, very warm people. The conferences are organised in a very high expertise level and I’m happy to be here and happy to take many takeaways and many insights for work.
Shayne
Distances and travel, I mean three days is, I’ve never done three days. I’ve traveled from Paris to Sydney, London to Sydney many, many times. 24 hours is a pretty standard amount of time but three days is admirable. Well done.
So, let’s just get straight into the questions. Maybe, Zhanerke, you could start by introducing your work and explain a little bit how rural development fits into your responsibilities in Kazakhstan.
Zhanerke
Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here today and also to attend the conference on rural development in Rio. It’s a really amazing journey. In Kazakhstan, especially I work on the research project that is dedicated to study rural development in northern parts of the Kazakhstan. So, our research is dedicated to explore how rural development is happening in northern regions because it is so regions with very low population density and also in Kazakhstan about more than 6 000 villages.
And for example, what we count as a village, a place where about 50 people live. So, each year we see that more than 200 villages are vanishing, disappearing from our territorial administrative map. So that is the most important problem for the northern regions because northern regions are facing, first of all, demographic problems like decreasing population and also because of that the rural population number is also rapidly decreasing because of that. So villages are disappearing.
Shayne
So yeah, I mean, and this is something we’re seeing across the OECD with shrinking regions and these demographic issues, and there are certain policies, of course, that can address these problems. I mean, in terms of population, what’s the split in Kazakhstan between rural and urban areas?
Zhanerke
So, during the Soviet Union time, our urban population used to be 53%, about that, and now we can see that urban population is about 63% and rural is about 37%. So, we can see that urbanisation is increasing and rural population is decreasing and now it is about 37% of our population is living in rural areas. And about 5% of our GDP comes from the agricultural sphere, yes, agricultural industry.
Shayne
The sector, yeah. And what would you say are some of the main reasons that are driving the increasing urbanisation of Kazakhstan?
Zhanerke
I think it’s demographic trends and migration that happens all over the world. Yes, this is the trends of urbanisation, very high urbanisation and big-metropolis, big cities are attracting mostly youth from their rural areas. They come to study to cities and they don’t want to come back to their villages and they stay at the cities.
And this is also appearing on our economic structure, so the structure of the economy and their labor market is also changing due to this urbanisation and migration processes. And I think mostly the urbanisation is happening because of the push factors of the migration. So, people migrate to cities in search of their better life, better life quality. And the government policies are trying to somehow increase the quality of life in rural areas also to implement such kind of urbanisation. So, to increase the quality of life in the rural areas.
However, anyway, youths prepare to live in their cities. And now we can see that demographic composition of the rural areas are mostly elder people are living there and all the youths are migrating to the cities.
Shayne
Yep, so you’ve got this real split based on demographics, but I think Kazakhstan has a unique rural landscape shaped by long distances, low population density, as you said, and really diverse regions. So just maybe digging into the challenges, what do you see as the main rural development challenges today?
Zhanerke
So, I think the main rural development challenge today is the quality of life, the difference between the quality of life in the cities and in their rural areas. Despite the attempts of the state of the government to increase the quality of life in the rural areas anyway, there is a difference and there is some kind of inequality in the social services like medical care, like education and according to the results of the PISA that looks at the quality of education. We can see the difference between rural school attainment and between the cities. So that is the problem that pushes population from the rural areas.
And another problem I think is that the small farmers are somehow, despite the fact that they produce about 80% of the livestock in our market anyway, it is harder for family farmers to keep on their economic activity. So, there are more opportunities for large scale agribusiness, but for family farmers it is hard to keep their economic activity. And now our government is working on this issue because according to our law, there is no such jurisdiction, do not differentiate family farmers. So, there is just farmers, but no family farmers. And that is why they stay outside of the state support. So now the state is working on a new law that will differentiate these family farmers and will allow them to also appeal for subsidies, for the state’s support.
Shayne
Okay, yeah. So, I’m getting very much the impression that rural economies in Kazakhstan traditionally relied on agriculture and resource sectors. I mean, are there other steps that have been taken to diversify rural livelihoods and support small businesses, for example?
Zhanerke
There are some programs that the state is undertaking. For example, there is a program named Al Amana. This is a program that is dedicated to supporting small businesses in rural areas especially. It’s about subsidised rate of loans for small farmers in rural areas. And so they can, for example, use this money to, as a starting capital, to buy some livestock, land, seeds, etc. And this especially shows some positive impact on the development of small businesses. And it is a program that is dedicated only for the rural areas and only to the agricultural sector.
So, and these kinds of programs they help to increase the economic activity of the rural citizens. And also, there is another programs that is dedicated to support the small and medium businesses in Kazakhstan like Damu. This is also the subsidised loans credits for the small and medium businesses. And they also can be realised in their rural areas. However, especially for the agricultural sector, there are separate programs that are dedicated to the rural citizens.
Shayne
Sure, sure. And I mean, just moving to one of the big ”D” trends, as we call it, we’ve spoken about demographic change. But in terms of digital and the digital transformation, could you just give us a bit of an idea of what’s the situation in Kazakhstan regarding connectivity? Let’s say between urban and rural areas and then kind of what the government is doing to help those in rural areas in places far from cities and built-up areas to kind of cope with the digital transformation. What new technologies and support is being offered?
Zhanerke
You’re right, that is the problem, the connectivity of the rural areas and especially with the infrastructure, the roads and also as an internet connection. I think in Kazakhstan, if I’m not mistaken, about 70% of the rural areas are covered by the internet and 30% still do not have access to the internet. It creates the situation with their digital inequality.
So, in order to deal with this, the government is undertaking some actions and one of them is implementing the starlings. Because cable internet is very expensive and that’s why they use these technologies like starling and etc in order to cover all the rural areas with the internet and to connect them in this sphere.
So, I think this kind of initiatives will be continuing and this is under the governments, I think it is under the government’s consideration always. So, it’s not the problem that is leaving behind, but it is the problem of which our government is taking care of.
Shayne
Yes, and that’s a very important factor actually that I’d like to touch upon as well, the multi-level governance. I mean, how do the local, regional and kind of federal government, national government in Kazakhstan operate? What are some of the dynamics there at the moment?
Zhanerke
There are dynamics, yes, because the state is now undertaking some kind of decentralisation reforms. So, before the administrators of the rural areas were, they were designated by the federal government or by the regional government. Now they are elected by the rural citizens themselves.
So, there is, yes, there is some decentralisation. Also, their fiscal decentralisation is taking place because those elected administrators, they have freedom to plan the budget, to execute the budget and to, for example, identify projects that they would like to implement in their villages. And this reform started recently, and I think they will give their results in the near future. But now we are electing village Akims. So, Akims, these are administrators at the village level and now at the one higher than village, it’s a region. And they are elected now.
And I think these decentralisation reforms; they will also bring some dynamics to the development of the rural areas. So, they are not ruled by the federal government or by the regional government, but they try to rule, so self-administration is, yes, self-administration is developing. And also, local communities are actively participating in their rural governance. That is also one of the dynamics that is happening.
And also, I would like to mention that large scale agri-business is also actively participating in the rural development. So they undertake many projects, for example, they put their input in development of the quality of education in the rural areas. And also they are developing telemedicine because not all rural areas have access to the high quality medical assistance. And that’s why they are developing such kind of digital instruments in the social service like medicine. And also, the quality of education, they are somehow collaborating with the big schools in the cities and they are providing me the logical support for these rural schools.
Shayne
Very good, yeah. Well, we’re really doing the tour of all the D-words, decentralisation, digitalisation, democracy. I mean, we touched upon as well and also demographic factors, which are really changing the face of rural areas in Kazakhstan. Well, I mean, we don’t have all day, obviously, but maybe we could just do a quick moment on climate adaptation, the environment. This is, you very much at the start of that particular journey at the moment, but what is being done to support people in rural areas to be more resilient, to cope with the changes that we’re seeing?
Zhanerke
So, you’re right, saying that we are on the beginning of this journey because, first of all, we were considering, and we were concentrating our efforts on economic development of the rural areas. And now, I think, gradually we will come to the ecological and sustainability of the rural regions. And for now, I think the soil deterioration is one of the problems that is happening in Kazakhstan. And we are realising that this is the problem that we should consider now in order to keep our sustainability in the future.
So, some kind of elements of the circular economy are being implemented, for example. You know that nomads, naturally, they have very high connection and very high harmony with the nature. And we are trying to implement those old traditional methods of cattle breeding and livestock production in our agricultural sector. So maybe this is the point that we are now working on and trying to bring in our resilience and sustainability vision.
Shagne
Okay, well, look, this is very much an OECD podcast . I know colleagues have colleagues that have been traveling to Kazakhstan in that region for a long time. And I’m just thinking as Kazakhstan is a non-OECD member, what lessons do you think you’d like to leave with policymakers from OECD economies and beyond regarding rural policy and rural development in Kazakhstan?
Zhanerke
So, attending the conference and hearing from the experts of the OECD about rural development, I see that there are very common challenges that we face. They are very common in Kazakhstan and in OECD countries and in Latin America also. And the solutions, as I see, some of the solutions are already realised and implemented in Kazakhstan, for example, connecting their public procurement with the local farmers and some of the elements are already implemented in caravans that provide health care for the rural population, also was implemented in Kazakhstan.
I see that many of the challenges are very common and some of the solutions for these challenges are implemented in Kazakhstan. So I think we have common problems and we have, in some way, common views in solving these challenges. And of course, OECD has very high expertise in policy recommendations and I think many of them are, we can implement in Kazakhstan.
And one of the problems that Kazakhstan is particularly facing is the long distance between the villages and between the cities, because for example, today and yesterday we were talking about the connection of the rural and urban areas. So, it is the main source of the development for the rural areas, yes, with this connectivity between rural and urban. But for some parts of the Kazakhstan’s rural areas, it is very hardly implemented because of the long distances. I think this is the problem that we need to consider further. But in general, I think many of the policy recommendations that are implemented by the OECD, they are applicable in Kazakhstan and they should be, yes, adapted.
Shayne
Indeed, and I imagine the development of infrastructure, given the long distances between cities as an Australian, I can definitely identify with that particular dynamic in our respective countries. But Zhanerke, thank you so much for joining OECD podcast today. I understand that you travelled so far and so long to get here, going through several different cities to get from Kazakhstan to Brazil. Thanks so much for coming and talking on OECD podcast today. It has been a great chat.
Zhanerke
Thank you for inviting me.
Host
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Zhanerke Kochiigitisa researcher in Nazarbayev University,locatedin Astana, Kazakhstan. She works in the Graduate School of Public Policyand is dedicated to studying rural development in northern regionsofKazakhstan,where there is very lowpopulation density.Her recent papers include: "Analysis of Migration Processes and Recommendations on Regulation of Internal Migration from Southern to Northern Regions of Kazakhstan" and "Actual aspects of population migration from labor surplus to the labor-deficit regions of Kazakhstan and state regulation of migration processes".She previouslyworkedat Eli Lilly and Company as a Product Manager.