KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

of rural migrants to create a new equilibrium, through which impoverished masses
gain more access to resources and opportunities and take advantage of the temporary
social mobility. The state has yet to shift its paternalistic view of rural migrants as
“dependent masses” towards viewing them as an emerging middle class that is engaged
in production and consumption markets. The state, thus, would compete against the
interests of organised crime for the expansion of the informal sector.
Good practices in rural migrant communities as a response to pressing issues that
the migrant entrepreneurs faced in their efforts to become self-employed and create
jobs for others have taken root. Micro-financing practices have helped keep many
households out of poverty, while NGOs have been central in providing capacity building
for professionalizing business. The government created laws and regulations that frame
some ideas about entrepreneurship, and provide some general rules of engagement
during market exchange. Self-help groups of internal migrants now represent the most
primary level of association of citizens; they can be the most effective word-of-mouth
marketing networks. The growing monetary power and well-rooted credit history in
the local community prepare the members of self-help groups to become responsible
borrowers and future employment generating units for communities in Bishkek suburbs
and in the regions alike.
The growing influence of small entrepreneurs represents a force that can demand
and achieve changes. At the same time, entrepreneurs may be the very individuals
and groups with the strongest stake in societal stability, since their small household
investments need stable and growing economy to produce returns. Thus, migrant
entrepreneurs, once they identify themselves as a factor of stability, can use their newlyacquired
middle class status to drive the economic growth of the country, producing
and reproducing some of the most capable, rapidly learning and rapidly gaining wealth
individuals and groups. They gain close access to elected officials during election
campaigns, and can eventually create elite cliques through which major decisionmaking
processes will be conducted. Examples include governmental appointments,
resource allocation, resource control, intergovernmental and international business
dealings, signings of international bilateral and multilateral agreements. There is hope
that, at later stages, these entrepreneurs– given their history and evolution as the new
middle class – will be the very people who can hold authorities accountable to the
electorate.
It seems plausible that, once the key government agencies targeted by this
paper are guided by these three principles (professionalization of business practices,
encompassing of the Middle Class meaning, and explanations of the benefits of
formalising the informal sector), it would be possible to conduct the process of
legalisation of informal business in the country. All three principles are concerned
to improve trust between the parties involved. Thus, the process of legalising small
business will involve giving new meaning to the livelihoods of migrant labour that
turn into entrepreneurial activities rendering stability and predictability. The small
entrepreneurs, largely represented by the rural migrant labour– if understood and
treated as middle classes of the Kyrgyz society – will acquire better opportunities to
grow their businesses, add to the economic growth of the nation, and become active
participants in the formulation of incremental and sequenced government policies.
This will create a good business climate, support export development, and inform
poverty-alleviation strategies that are linked to mobilising regional and national
resources instead of depending on foreign aid packages.
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