Central Asia Invest

Boosting Small Business Competitiveness

PROMHOUSE – Promoting professional housing management in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

The project is implemented by Housing Initiatives for Eastern Europe (IWO e.V.) and works with BIOs in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Project overview

PROMHOUSE aims to boost the development of the private sector and the economic diversification in Central Asia by empowering and strengthening private companies in the sector of housing management in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

In order to reach the goals, the project is designed with the following specific objectives in mind:

  • enhance the capacities of MSMEs and BIOs to represent their interests and encouraging them to take an active role in housing policy decision-making processes
  • improve professionalism as well as organisational and institutional capacities of BIOs to provide training and skill development activities for MSMEs (e.g. on housing management, financial management, energy efficiency (EE) in buildings et al.)
  • initiate vocational education and training (VET) for housing managers at Central Asian VET institutions
  • increase professional capacities of entrepreneurs and job seekers, in order to stimulate job creation and MSMEs development
  • support innovation through testing and disseminating new building and maintenance technologies, materials, and the involvement in local networks and clusters
  • strengthen links and networks between European and Central Asian BIOs and local authorities.
With the support of the PROMHOUSE project, a ‘Qualifications Council’ (QC) has been established in Kazakhstan in 12´2020 – the body responsible for the development of sector certification. At the “Qualifications Council” round table, 04´2021, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between Housing Managers Associations.

Implementers

The project is implemented by an international consortium of partners from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Germany. German partner beside the Berlin-based Housing Initiative for Eastern Europe (IWO e.V.) assigned with the project management, is the European educational centre for the housing and real estate industry (EBZ) in Bochum. Partners in the region are the Association of the organizations of professionally managing and serving housing funds from Tashkent and the SHANYRAK Association of management entities, services and energy service in housing sector from Nur-Sultan. Associated partner is the UNDP’s representation in Kazakhstan.

Publications, articles and trainings

This publication presents an example of a Housing Association from Germany advocating for change in the Housing Relations Act. Three reviews for the article – by housing specialists from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus (in Russian) can be found here.

Find here the analysis of professional management of housing stock capacity in Kazakhstan (Russian / English).

Trainings. Have a look at the different phases of the TOT “Taining for Trainers” programme for housing managers (in Russian).

Good to know

All project events will be covered on the website of the Uzbek Association of the organizations of professionally managing and serving housing funds: https://uyushma.uz/project. The project‘s website is in Russian and English.

Overview of the project activities for 2020 – see Newsletter №2 (here). Newsletters are published twice a year in both English and Russian.

Contact person: Larissa Schreckenbach, Initiative Wohnungswirtschaft Osteuropa (IWO), schreckenbach@iwoev.org