Religious Affairs Minister opens ASAR Forum

ASTANA. KAZINFORM - Darkhan Kaletayev, Minister of Religious Affairs and Civil Society, has unveiled the forum of trilateral cooperation ASAR in Taldykorgan, Kazinform has learnt from the ministry's press service. The forum is set to become a dialogue platform for cooperation of the government, NGOs and business to solve pressing issues for the sake of society.

The forum brought together 300 domestic and international NGOs and business companies, 33 speakers.

"ASAR platform is one of the tools to implement Atameken subprogram of the Rukhani Janghyru program. It is a communication tool which ensures translation of the best practices of joint activities of NGOs, business and the government," Kaletayev said in his opening remarks.

The minister noted that within the framework of the Rukhani Janghyru program philanthropists built 424 facilities and modernized 377 facilities to the tune of 52 billion tenge in 2017.

 It should be noted that the forum is held in new region every year. The first ASAR forum was held in 2017 in Atyrau, this year it is hosted by Taldykorgan.

"So far this is the only region which has successfully implemented and tested a project on creation of the Local Communities Fund," Kaletayev stressed.

As part of the forum, Minister Kaletayev got familiar with the projects supported by local entrepreneurs within the framework of "Social Ideas Platform".

216 applications have been submitted. Of 216, 47 projects are form Almaty, 34 projects - from Pavlodar and 27 projects - from Kostanay region. 141 projects went through the final selection.

Businessmen supported 8 projects of NGOs, including 4 projects from Almaty region, and 1 project from Zhambyl, Kostanay, North Kazakhstan and Shymkent city apiece.

Some projects offer retraining for people with disabilities, others develop tourism sector.