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O 140933Z JAN 10
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASTANA 000036 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL, G/TIP, EUR/ACE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON EAID SOCI KDEM KTIP OSCE KZ
SUBJECT:  CIVIL SOCIETY ACTIVE IN NORTHERN KAZAKHSTAN 
 
ASTANA 00000036  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
REFTELS:  A.  ASTANA 0010 
      ¶B.  ASTANA 0013 
      ¶C.  ASTANA 0023 
      ¶D.  ASTANA 0024 
 
¶1.  (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  During recent visits to Kazakhstan's Kostanai 
and North Kazakhstan Oblasts (refs A-D), NGO representatives 
emphasized the growth of a vibrant civil society, especially in 
Kostanai Oblast.  They highlighted key challenges facing the 
multi-ethnic and agrarian border regions, including unemployment, 
infectious diseases, environmental problems, domestic violence, and 
human trafficking.  END SUMMARY. 
 
KOSTANAI OFFICIALS AND NGOS DESCRIBE VIBRANT CIVIL SOCIETY 
 
¶3.  (SBU) According to Akimat (regional administration) 
representative Tatyana Zueva, more than 500 NGOs actively work in 
Kostanai Oblast, and the Oblast distributed more than 50 million 
tenge ($333,000) to 70 NGOs to complete 75 projects over the past 
year.  During a roundtable with 12 NGO interlocutors and three 
regional administration representatives, NGOs praised the local 
government for their support.  Emphasizing the region's 
predominantly rural and agrarian nature, Zueva underlined the Oblast 
Akimat's efforts to allocate most of its budget to NGOs outside of 
major cities. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) One of Kostanai's largest and most successful 
organizations, Pomosch (Help), provides activities for disadvantaged 
youth and helps drug addicts and AIDS patients.  Headed by Igor 
Vassilenko, a medical doctor and psychologist, whose hobbies include 
Asian martial arts and music, Pomosch has 28 employees and 53 
volunteers.  The NGO took a large, decrepit, two-story building and 
renovated it into a modern facility with a recreation center, 
medical clinic, and local-government-funded communal NGO resource 
center.  Help also completed more than 10 large-scale, year-long 
projects. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Speaking at the roundtable, Vassilenko praised the 
Kostanai government's support and its employment of a tender-process 
to fund NGO activities.  He has used grants to equip a suite of 
rooms for medical treatment and collectively create a website with 
other NGOs, which has answered more than 5,000 anonymous questions, 
many on health concerns related to drug use and sexual activities. 
Thanks to the organization's efforts, the drug addiction situation 
in Kostanai improved, and Kostanai moved from second to fifth in the 
number of drug addicts per region, he asserted.  According to 
Vassilenko, the good cooperation of Kostanai's civil society and 
local government has engendered the region's favorable 
socio-economic situation, in comparison to other Kazakhstani 
regions, Russia, and other CIS states. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Dmitry Dei, formerly the director of an 80-member NGO 
association, recalled using a $3,000 local-government grant and 
USAID support to sponsor NGO workshops.  Alexey Kulikov described 
his "Crossroad" organization's implementation, with local and U.S. 
government funds, of more than 20 projects for orphans.  Valentina 
Komkova, formerly Chairwoman of a Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions, recounted her participation in an entrepreneurial 
policy-making council of experts and the development of 
anti-monopoly trade legislation.  Mikhail Dauenov, an elderly 
gentleman representing "For a Judicial Kazakhstan," which he claimed 
is one of Kostanai's oldest and most powerful NGOs, asserted 
accountability and control of corruption is better in Kostanai than 
in other regions of Kazakhstan -- and other CIS countries.  He 
thanked the United States for its recognition of Kazakhstan's 
development of civil society "by supporting its 2010 OSCE 
Chairmanship." 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Despite widespread praise for local-government support, 
financial challenges remain.  According to Tatyana Shalygina of the 
Kostanai Oblast Human Rights Bureau, her office provides judicial 
assistance to refugees, stateless persons, and low-income 
 
ASTANA 00000036  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
applicants.  In 2009, the number of clients doubled from the 
previous year to 1000.  Shalygina warned that her organization's two 
lawyers and one other regional employee cannot meet growing demand. 
At Lyubov Efanova's "Choice" center, 300 volunteers -- no paid 
employees -- train disadvantaged boys.  Meanwhile, Kuralay 
Akhmedinova's all-volunteer center provides free consumer rights 
consultations.  Alexey Kulikov, who had been to the United States, 
requested that the U.S. Government send NGO experts to observe local 
conditions and advise them on how to expand activities given local 
conditions. 
 
NORTH KAZAKHSTAN NGO FOCUSED ON YOUTH AND HEALTH CONCERNS 
 
¶8.  (SBU) In North Kazakhstan Oblast, PolOff met five young NGO 
leaders who share office space to save money.  The most experienced, 
Sergey Belov, founded the organization "Active Youth" as a college 
student in 2005.  According to Belov, the region's most serious 
problems include unemployment, alcoholism, crime, and infectious 
diseases.  Since 2006, Belov's former volunteers have founded nine 
different NGOs and won numerous grants, including a three-month, 
$1,400  project to create youth centers.  Belov expressed concerns 
about the difficulty of obtaining government support for his project 
to open youth activity clubs throughout North Kazakhstan Oblast and 
Petropavlovsk city.  "The North Kazakhstan Oblast administration 
prefers to organize one-time events, since they say funding centers 
offering several events per week over a long-term is more 
complicated and expensive," Belov complained.  Regional 
administration officials reportedly told Belov that large-scale 
activities, such as festivals, are easier to prepare -- and generate 
more publicity. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Belov described a 95% Oblast-funded project, in which NGO 
workers and regional health experts travel to rural villages to hold 
seminars and empower local leaders to organize activities to resolve 
health problems.  Ministry of Health experts also traveled to the 
three sub-regions of North Kazakhstan Oblast, where tuberculosis is 
a significant problem, to teach care-giving to family members of 
acutely ill patients. 
 
MAIN CHALLENGES:  FUNDING AND GOVERNMENT SUPPORT 
 
¶10.  (SBU) The continual challenges of young NGOs, Belov argued, 
include convincing government officials, who change positions 
frequently, to accept their ideas and competition for limited funds. 
 Belov told PolOff "local government authorities change very fast -- 
the head of North Kazakhstan Oblast's Department of Internal 
Politics has changed three times in several years."  Each time, NGOs 
must convince authorities to cooperate anew, a time-consuming 
process, which often requires gradually building trust and 
relationships.  Nonetheless, he praised the Oblast level, which 
established a Youth Committee willing to engage with NGOs, while 
asserting that most national-level senators from North Kazakhstan 
Oblast "do not understand NGOs."  Belov alleged North Kazakhstan's 
regional administration allocates most funding to one large NGO, 
which has been working in the NGO field for about 10 years and is 
supported by an unnamed local senator.  Belov underlined 
difficulties for new NGOs to access both international and 
domestic-funding sources. 
 
NGO URGES MORE HELP ON TRAFFICKING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 
 
¶11.  (SBU) The Womens' Support Center provides assistance to female 
domestic-violence and human-trafficking victims.  Its chairwoman, a 
well-known, outspoken human rights activist, Alina Orlova, who made 
a presentation on her organization's activities at the OSCE's Human 
Dimension Meeting in Warsaw in October, underlined the leading role 
played by foreign and international organizations.  She asserted 
that despite the national requirement to protect and rehabilitate 
victims of human trafficking, the mechanisms "are not fully worked 
out."  She highlighted insufficient Kazakhstani-government funding 
to NGOs under the government's "Plan of activities to prevent crimes 
related to human trafficking."  To underscore her point, she cited a 
statistic comparing the $70,000 allocated over a three-year period 
to NGOs for victim protection with the Ministry of Culture's $87,000 
 
ASTANA 00000036  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
annual budget for "socially-significant projects."  Orlova further 
underlined gaps in media awareness campaigns, primarily arising from 
the Kazakhstani government budget cycle, and occasional problems 
with ineffectual courts and law-enforcement entities, especially in 
southern Kazakhstan.  Orlova also noted an increase in domestic 
violence in North Kazakhstan, affecting even well-educated women, 
due to the economic crisis. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) COMMENT:  Both local officials and NGO representatives 
highlight civil society's success in the Kostanai and North 
Kazakhstan regions.  NGOs are expanding activities, obtaining some 
funding, cooperating with local government, and creating spin-off 
organizations.  NGOs, however, continue to struggle to obtain 
financial support, and, especially in North Kazakhstan, to improve 
cooperation with the regional administration.  Kostanai Oblast NGOs, 
which have contributed to a very vibrant civil society, could offer 
"best practices" to other regions of Kazakhstan and support 
inter-regional cooperation.  INL has been working closely with NGOs, 
the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Interior to support 
effective information campaigns to combat trafficking in persons and 
has been pleased with the results.  END COMMENT. 
 
HOAGLAND