The world has lifted around 1.5 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990, but the job is far from done. About 831 million people — nearly one in ten — still live in extreme poverty today, on less than $3.00 per person a day, and at the current pace, the world is off track to achieve the SDG1 by 2030. Tajikistan’s story illustrates both the opportunities and challenges of turning rapid growth into sustained, inclusive prosperity.
The road of Tajikistan’s poverty reduction
Over the past decade, Tajikistan has achieved a remarkable poverty reduction, with the national poverty rate dropping from 56 percent in 2010 to just below 20 percent in 2024.
During the same period, the share of middle-class households — defined as those living on more than $15 per person a day — quadrupled from 8 to 33 percent, signaling profound improvements in living standards. These gains reflect the country’s resilience and ambition to achieve the goals of its National Development Strategy 2030: reducing poverty below 10 percent and expanding the middle class to half of the population.
But behind these impressive statistics lies a paradox. The new Tajikistan Poverty and Equity Assessment 2025, Transformation at Home, tells a nuanced story. It highlights how much of the progress was fueled by rising incomes within existing jobs and external transfers, rather than by a structural transformation of the economy. Between 2021 and 2022, labor income growth accounted for 73 percent of poverty reduction, while remittances explained nearly 40 percent of the overall decline in poverty and one quarter of middle-class expansion.
More than a quarter of the national labor force works abroad, mostly in the Russian Federation, sending home remittances equivalent to about 49 percent of GDP in 2024. Although these inflows have boosted consumption and lifted millions out of poverty, they have also created structural vulnerabilities. Poorer households that cannot afford to send migrants remain excluded, and income inequality has widened: the Gini coefficient rose from 32 in 2021 to 38 in 2023.
A growth model that leaves too many behind
Despite robust GDP growth averaging 7 percent annually since 2013, job creation has lagged. For every one percent increase in GDP, employment has risen only by 0.2 percent, which is one of the lowest rates in the region. Most expansion has taken place in capital-intensive industries and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), while labor-intensive private sectors such as construction and services have stagnated. Nearly half of all jobs remain in SOEs or the public sector, crowding out private initiatives.
Agriculture, which still employs about 60 percent of workers but generates just one-quarter of GDP, continues to absorb excess labor without lifting productivity. While the middle-class has expanded across the country, its presence remains less pronounced in rural areas. In contrast, more diversified urban centers such as Dushanbe and Sughd have seen faster middle-class growth.
Geography and gender compound inequality. For every 500 meters of elevation, the chances of being poor rise by about 10 percentage points, reflecting limited infrastructure and market access in mountainous areas. Female labor-force participation remains strikingly low at 21 percent, nearly 40 points below men’s rate, and two-thirds of young women are neither in employment, education, nor training. These gaps weaken household resilience and slow human-capital accumulation.
Adding to these challenges is Tajikistan’s high vulnerability to adverse weather events. Rural areas, especially Khatlon, DRS, and GBAO, are prone to droughts and floods that threaten agriculture-based livelihoods. The Poverty and Equity Assessment estimates that under pessimistic climate scenarios, poverty could increase by 1.2 percentage points nationally by 2035, while nearly half a million people could miss joining the middle class by 2040.
The way forward: building opportunity at home
Tajikistan now stands at a crossroads. The question is not whether the country can keep reducing poverty, but whether it can replace migration-led progress with homegrown, inclusive prosperity. The report identifies four interconnected policy priorities.
1. Kick-start structural transformation through agricultural renewal
Agriculture remains the backbone of rural livelihoods, yet its potential is underused. Relaxing crop-mandate policies, improving access to irrigation and climate-smart technologies, and revitalizing extension and market-information services, especially in Khatlon, can raise productivity and incomes. Boosting on-farm value addition and linking farmers to agro-processing could lay the foundation for domestic structural transformation.
2. Create jobs in labor-intensive private sectors
Industrial policy should shift from capital-intensive, state-led projects toward private-sector-driven, employment-rich industries such as agro-processing, construction, logistics, and light manufacturing. Encouraging competition and easier market entry, for example, in courier and service sectors, would harness Tajikistan’s young labor force and reduce dependence on remittances.
3. Equalize access to opportunities across regions and groups
Tajikistan’s growth could have reduced poverty by an additional 4 percentage points if it had been more inclusive. Bridging spatial and gender divides is therefore essential. Investments in rural education, vocational training, transport, and digital connectivity would connect isolated communities to markets and jobs. Expanding financial inclusion — with less than 15 percent of households holding bank accounts — would empower small entrepreneurs, especially women and youth.
4. Strengthen protection for the vulnerable
Although around 45 percent of the poor receive public transfers, most benefits come from pensions. Targeted Social Assistance (TSA) – the country’s main social assistance program supporting low-income families – reaches only about 15 percent of households. Expanding the TSA’s coverage and improving its targeting accuracy would help more low-income families cope with shocks and avoid falling back into poverty.
A transformation at home
Tajikistan’s poverty reduction story proves that growth, even when externally driven, can lift millions. The challenge now is to build on that success to expand domestic opportunities. Building a more diversified, inclusive, and climate-resilient economy will require reforms that empower the private sector, modernize agriculture, and close the education and gender gaps.
As the Tajikistan Poverty and Equity Assessment concludes, “prosperity must now be homegrown.” Findings from Enhancing the Development Impacts of Migration in Central Asia reinforces this message: while migration has lifted incomes, its development gains are often short-lived unless accompanied by stronger job creation at home. United Nations projections show that more than 600,000 young people in Tajikistan aged 15-24 will enter the labor force in the next decade. Creating productive jobs at home will be essential to turning Tajikistan’s demographic potential into a driver of inclusive and resilient growth.
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