The Wider Central Asia Initiative

A particular focus of SIPRI’s Wider Central Asia Initiative was how regional security can be strengthened or developed through formal institutions and informal mechanisms to address the existing and emerging security challenges. As a part of this work, SIPRI consulted with the Afghan Government and brought together experts and officials from Afghanistan’s regional neighbours—Iran, Pakistan and five Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

By bringing together key actors from the region in structured dialogues, and by providing independent analyses of the problems at hand, SIPRI provided policymakers with recommendations that could contribute to the strengthening of regional policies that support durable stability and security in Afghanistan and its neighbourhood. The initiative was supported by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.