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In June 2023, the UNESCO Director-General, Ms. Audrey Azoulay, visited the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. In Kazakhstan, she held official meetings with the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and several other decision-makers, visited the in Turkestan, the first site inscribed by the Republic of Kazakhstan in the UNESCO World Heritage List, participated in the plenary session of the , and attended the gala concert of the music cycle of the UNESCO International Youth Festival "The Planet of ART 2023". In Kyrgyzstan, she also held official meetings with the President of the Kyrgyz Republic and national decision-makers, and visited the Adygene and Golubin glaciers located near Bishkek.

During the visit she was calling for stronger regional and multilateral cooperation in glacier protection and water management. She also announced new UNESCO investments for scientific cooperation in Central Asia. "When glaciers melt, they take with them entire ecosystems and significantly increase the risk of natural disasters. This also threatens to deprive a large part of the world's population of their means of subsistence. This issue requires greater regional and international cooperation", pleaded Audrey Azoulay during her speech at the Astana International Forum - a speech in which the Director-General of UNESCO underscored that "world peace will also depend on water".

In July 2023, the UNESCO Almaty in cooperation with the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme organized an inception workshop on "Strengthening the resilience of Central Asian countries by enabling regional cooperation to assess high altitude glacio-nival systems to develop integrated methods for sustainable development and adaptation to climate change" project at UNESCO Headquarters. The project aims to strengthen the adaptation capacity of five Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to climate change impacts on the cryosphere through assessment, promotion of regional cooperation, and stakeholder engagement.

This regional project on the cryosphere in Central Asia marks a significant milestone in collective efforts to address climate change and build resilience in the region. By bringing together key stakeholders and fostering regional cooperation, this initiative will play a pivotal role in advancing sustainable development and adaptation strategies. UNESCO is honored to announce the successful launch of this project and anticipates the positive impact it will have on the Central Asian countries involved.

As part of the GLOFCA project, a Glacial Lake Inventory (GLI) toolbox for mapping and monitoring of glacial lakes in Central Asia was developed. The GLI toolbox offers the possibility to monitor temporal lake changes in an automated way, and the detected lake outlines can be exported as shape files. The toolbox was presented to the countries during a face-to-face training in Almaty in November 2022, followed by a series of webinars in May 2023. The training series gave national partners the opportunity to use the toolbox in practice. The toolbox will be used to produce up-to-date glacial lake inventories, which is being currently implemented by the national implementing partners.

In September 2023, the UNESCO Almaty organized a workshop for journalism schools from four universities in Kyrgyzstan. The workshop aimed to facilitate the creation of a National Journalism Education Platform, utilizing resources generated by IPDC's Global Initiative for Excellence in Journalism Education. Additionally, it focused on the development of gender-responsive courses to enhance the quality of journalism education.

By September 2023 – Under the 'Skilled Teachers, Skilled Nation' joint initiative UNESCO Almaty in cooperation with the World Bank, Ministries of Education in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and the national researcher teams has effectively established a forum where education experts can share their insights and expertise regarding teacher recruitment policies, in-service and pre-service teacher training programs, as well as the career advancement pathways for educators. A regional study on teacher policies in Central Asia identifying the strengths and gaps in the system is slated to be released soon to support reforms needed to create an effective teaching force.

In June 2023, UNESCO Almaty and HertsCam Network organised a webinar to share experience about the Teacher Leadership in Kazakhstan (TLK) project with the other Central Asian countries. The webinar was attended by more than 80 educationists, practitioners, researchers and teachers across the region. The project addresses all governments’ commitments to education reform through support for strategies to improve the quality of teacher education in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

On the initiative of the National Association of Private Education Organisations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and with the support of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE), ten video lessons in Kazakh and Russian languages were created for conducting lessons on healthy lifestyles.

A manual with recommendations on how to organise and conduct such training sessions using these video lessons has been developed to help teachers. The video lessons and the manual on their use will be useful for teachers, teachers of supplementary education and other educators.

In summer 2023, UNESCO Almaty finalized the "Strengthening Digital Literacy Skills and Competencies and Promoting Gender Equality in Cultural and Creative Sectors in Central Asia" Project funded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of the Republic of Korea. One of the main outcomes of the project are Recommendations on digital skills development for representatives of the three creative industries – film, music and organisation of cultural events.

Separately, as a follow-up to this project, UNESCO Almaty finalized the Mapping of Educational Platforms that support creative entrepreneurs and creative industries experts in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This document may be useful for all professionals in the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) sector and may help to promote co-operation between the region's creative communities.

Launched in August 2023, new UNESCO Almaty “Strengthening Regional Capacity in Central Asia for Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness for Culture” project will focus strengthening the capacities of World Heritage site managers and emergency preparedness. This support offers a timely opportunity to address the threats and pay attention to the emergency preparedness for culture, emergency management systems at World Heritage Properties, museums and other heritage institutions in Central Asian countries.

The EU-funded UNESCO project in Tajikistan is making significant strides in the field of STEM education. By focusing on the development of ICT-CST teacher competency standards and gender-responsive standards, as well as teacher and learning materials for chemistry, biology, and physics subjects, the project aims to improve the overall quality of STEM education in the country.

Over the course of April to June 2023, three national workshops were conducted as part of this endeavor. The first workshop, titled "Competency-based Education in STEM Curriculum," brought together a diverse group of 82 participants. This included ministerial officials, international experts, and local educational stakeholders who collaborated to draft concrete recommendations for enhancing STEM subject standards, textbooks, and available teaching/learning materials for grades 7-11.

Building upon the outcomes of the initial workshop, the second and third workshops served as foundational milestones for the development of teaching and learnings materials with a focus on reviewing national curriculum framework, subject standards for physics, chemistry, and biology, as well as teaching and learning materials through a gender analysis tools and Information and Communications Technologies.

This study provides an assessment of the state of the Internet in the Republic of Kazakhstan based on UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators. More than 500 state information systems and about 300 systems in subordinate organizations, not counting banking, business and public systems, are “expecting” or are in the process of digital transformation in Kazakhstan.

The report uses 109 core and 21 contextual indicators to assess how well the Internet protects human rights, promotes openness, ensures accessibility for all, and encourages multi-stakeholder participation. The study will be useful for a wide range of readers interested in the influence of the Internet on social life. The publication contains links and references to sources of information on the digital landscape of Kazakhstan.