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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to look to new opportunities that may be available to the nations comprising Central Asia. The region has recovered only slowly since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Design/methodology/approach - Based on secondary data from reports by the UN, ADB and other NGOs, academic papers and the press, a quasi-mathematical equation is used to illustrate how infrastructure development is dependant on many factors. From this analysis the importance of the transportation sector for future growth is discerned. Historical detractors are noted and drivers for the future are discussed. Findings - The paper finds that Central Asia's future growth and prosperity would be based on a robust redevelopment of all its infrastructures but primarily on the implementation of Maglev high speed rail systems to move freight quickly internally and for Eurasian transit. Practical implications - Well-integrated transport infrastructures enhance local wellbeing. The interconnectedness and interdependence of globalised economies depend on transport, but other aspects of the total infrastructure local and regional must be integrated to achieve growth. In the case of Central Asia it is seen that an accord between the Presidents is needed to ensure regional cooperation, which will lead to Eurasian cooperation. Originality/value - The region has been forgotten, to some extent, by the global community, yet it has great potential to become again an important transportation hub between Europe and Asia. The value of the paper is in noting the push of many NGOs towards regional integration, which may be best approached, we suggest, from an initial investment in its transportation infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical infrastructure has a paramount role in socio-economic development, and its disruption can have dramatic consequences for human communities, including cascading impacts. Assessing critical-infrastructure exposure to multiple hazard is therefore of utmost importance for disaster risk reduction purposes. However, past efforts in exposure assessment have predominantly concentrated on residential buildings, often overlooking the unique characteristics of critical infrastructure. Knowing the location, type and characteristics of critical infrastructure is particularly challenging due to the overall scarcity of data and difficulty of interacting with local stakeholders. We propose a method to assess exposure of selected critical infrastructure and demonstrate it for Central Asia, a region prone to multiple hazards (e.g., floods, earthquakes, landslides). We develop the first regionally consistent exposure database for selected critical infrastructure and asset types (namely, non-residential buildings, transportation and croplands), assembling the available global and regional datasets together with country-based information provided by local authorities and research groups, including reconstruction costs. The method addresses the main known challenges related to exposure assessment of critical infrastructure (i.e., data scarcity, difficulties in interacting with local stakeholders) by collecting national-scale data with the help of local research groups. The analysis also includes country-based reconstruction costs, supporting regional-scale disaster risk reduction strategies that include the financial aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Asian States (CAS) have diverse natural resources. This research aims to shed light on the finance–natural resource's association in the context of CAS namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in 1996–2020 using the cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag technique. It seeks to examine the research question, "What is the effect of natural resource wealth on the financial expansion (FE) of Central Asia?" The results demonstrated an inverted U-shaped association between financial growth and natural resource rents. It implies that natural resources are initially a "resource blessing" that later becomes a "resource curse." Additionally, the effect of institutional quality (INQ) and human development (HD) on financial growth is examined. The results reveal that INQ and HD positively affect FE. Moreover, a bidirectional causal relationship exists between FE and INQ. Finally, all variables contribute to a long term FE. Based on these outcomes, the major policy recommendations are that the CAS authorities diversify their financial services and products and direct the proceeds from natural resource rents to effective investments particularly in HD. In addition, the social and political infrastructures in CAS must be restructured to achieve a high-quality institutional environment, which is necessary to increase the role of the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article reports on an ongoing investigation of Internet development in Central Asia. Begun in 2000, the research currently focuses on recent developments in Uzbekistan, including changes in legislation governing telecommunications. The results of two surveys conducted in November and December 2002 in Tashkent and Bukhara, Uzbekistan, are presented. These surveys of managers at Internet access points and information technology professionals provide a detailed picture of the current state of Internet infrastructure in Uzbekistan, particularly in contrast to official government figures. The article argues that effective survey research must incorporate an understanding of how culture, policy, and infrastructure affect patterns of Internet development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]