Kazakhstan's communal infrastructure has been underinvested for decades, and a series of utility failures — Ekibastuz, Ridder, Astana — pushed modernization up the political agenda. The government is preparing a nationwide wastewater-treatment programme and a National Project for the energy and utilities sectors.

What is missing is a centre of competence to run that transformation. KazCentre, a state agency of about seventy staff, “is technically designed to be such a centre, but lacks appropriate expertise, resources and legal base to carry out the role” — the ToR's own words.

Under the EBRD's SMART technical-assistance programme, a consultant team reviews the sector's institutional set-up, designs KazCentre's corporate development path, and proposes the regulatory reforms needed for the agency to lead a national municipal-infrastructure programme.

• Component 1 — diagnostics: review the institutional set-up of district heating, water and wastewater, electricity and solid waste; benchmark KazCentre against OECD governance guidelines
• Component 2 — an enhanced corporate development programme: commercialisation recommendations and a governance action plan to make the sector investable
• Component 3 — sector regulation reform: the target institutional model, a legal basis for KazCentre as operator of communal-property projects, and an implementation plan
• Recommend a subordinate research, design and survey institute at KazCentre for modern water, wastewater, heating and SWM technology
• Deliver a training programme in Russian within six months — advanced project management, IFI procurement rules and procedures, FIDIC requirements
• Organise a technical study tour for KazCentre staff to a country with advanced municipal-infrastructure practice

“One of the key objectives of this assignment is to facilitate building the Programme implementation capacity of KazCentre as the sector development agency.”