Waste management in Kazakhstan an active agenda in the area of water management systems; Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in the area of mountain ecosystems; Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have an active agenda in the area of biodiversity; and Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in the area of combating desertification. The principal financing for regional projects is divided according to the following priorities: environmental problem of the Aral Sea 76% of total funds; protected mountain territories 16%; combating desertification and land degradation 2%; and other targeted projects 6%. It is obvious that trans-boundary issues - air and surface water pollution, waste utilization, combating densification of soil exposed to
Science and technology in Uzbekistan from these contracts have ‘generated USS 680 billion (almost US$ 300 million), providing US$7.8 million in import substitution’, according to the report. One-quarter (26%) of the proposals vetted concerned biotechnologies, 19% new materials, 16% medicine, 15% oil and gas, 13% energy and metallurgy and 12% chemical technologies. In the region, research spending has hovered around the 0.2–0.3% mark for the past decade but, in 2013, Uzbekistan boosted its own commitment to 0.41% of GDP, distancing Kazakhstan on 0.18%. Not to be outdone, Kazakhstan has vowed to raise its own research effort to 1% by 2015, according to the State Programme