Kyrgyzstan’s mountain diplomacy across multilateral forums

Introduction

Mountains are a defining feature of Kyrgyzstan, a small country in Central Asia: over 85% of its land area are higher than 1,500 metres. It is therefore maybe no surprise to see that mountains are also at the heart of Kyrgyzstan’s foreign policy. Ever since its independence in 1991, Kyrgyzstan has worked to protect fragile mountain ecosystem at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), with considerable success: Beyond a total of 15 mountain-related resolutions (see Annex) that Kyrgyzstan initiated or co-sponsored, the country initiated two successful campaigns to designate first 2002 as ‘International Year of Mountains’, and again 2022, as ‘International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development’. More recently, Kyrgyzstan has turned its attention to the negotiations under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to advance its mountain agenda. While the country had initially been a rather silent participant in the climate negotiations, it has started to play a more active role in recent years. Among other things, it sought to establish a coalition of mountainous countries, to include mountains on the climate agenda, and organised several side events as well as a pavilion at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024.

Why did Kyrgyzstan start to mobilise for mountains in the climate arena? To what extent does this new engagement come at the expense of its diplomatic efforts at the UNGA? To address these questions, we compare Kyrgyzstan’s mountain diplomacy in the UNGA and UNFCCC processes, based on official documents, interviews with 17 stakeholders, and direct observations at several climate meetings (for the full study, see Desmasures and Klöck 2025).

Kyrgyzstan’s mountain diplomacy at the UNGA

Small states face distinct challenges in international affairs. With limited human, financial, and diplomatic resources, small states cannot pursue a broad range of priorities but need to prioritise and engage selectively in specific areas and arenas. Yet in their specific “niche”, small states can develop considerable expertise, build up networks and expertise, gain the trust and recognition of others, and become relatively influential (for overviews, see e.g. Panke 2013).

Kyrgyzstan’s mountain diplomacy is a prime example of this niche diplomacy. Early on since its independence, Kyrgyzstan has decided to focus its diplomatic efforts on the issue of mountains and was to some extent a pioneer in this area, as one representative of the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (a multistakeholder mountain-related alliance) explains: “Kyrgyzstan was the first on the mountain agenda”.

The UNGA seemed like an appropriate venue for this advocacy, for several reasons. Our interviews first emphasise the value of the UNGA as an opportunity for broad engagement with diverse countries. Kyrgyzstan has only a rather small network of embassies but can reach out to all countries in the world in New York. Second, mountain-focused UN resolutions bring global attention to the issue of mountains. This attention in turn allows Kyrgyzstan to attract funding for mountain-related projects—a key policy objective. Third, Kyrgyzstan can count on several partners and allies in its advocacy at the UNGA. On the one hand, it obtains institutional support directly from the United Nations Secretariat. On the other hand, it partners with three multi-actor partnerships in particular:  the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP), which Kyrgyzstan itself initiated in 2013 and hosts in its capital, Bishkek, the UN Group of Friends of Mountainous Countries that Kyrgyzstan also initiated in 2019, and the Mountain Partnership, which is an umbrella organisation of diverse mountain-related actors. These partnerships help build capacity and are vital to the flurry of diplomatic activities that Kyrgyzstan organised throughout the past years in New York. These activities allow Kyrgyzstan to reach out to and garner political support from a broad range of countries and other entities. To further support these activities, Kyrgyzstan even created the position of ‘Special Envoy of the Kyrgyz Republic on Mountains’ in 2022.

Consequently, Kyrgyzstan can now look back at a track record of mountain-related resolutions, in addition to the two years dedicated to mountains in 2002 and 2022. It has not only built significant knowledge, expertise, and institutional memory in its Permanent Representation to the UN, but also recognition as the flag-bearer of mountain issues and leader of mountain protection globally. Despite changes in government and domestic political dynamics, the issue of sustainable mountain development has remained a consistent priority for Kyrgyzstan since its initial UNGA resolution in 1998—reflecting a long-term quest for status-seeking through leadership in a specific issue-area since the country’s independence.

Increasing mobilisation for the UN climate negotiations

Since mountain ecosystems are highly fragile and vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change,

the UN climate negotiations would a priori seem like a suitable forum to advocate for mountain protection. Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan has long been rather silent at these meetings and sent only very small delegations or none at all for some meetings (between 1995 and 2015, the Kyrgyz delegation to the yearly climate COPs (Conferences of the Parties) comprised only three delegates on average) (UNFCCC 1995-2024). Indeed, Kyrgyzstan has regularly missed negotiation sessions, especially the smaller and more technical interim negotiations, known as the Subsidiary Bodies (SB) meetings in Bonn — although these are vital to prepare the COPs. Its participation has further been hindered by the lack of a coalition: indeed, and as opposed to the large majority of countries, Kyrgyzstan is not a member of any negotiation group or coalition, not even the G77 and China, the largest coalition comprising almost all developing countries[1]. Without such collective backing, it is difficult if not impossible, to follow the negotiations and its multiple streams and meetings, especially with small delegations.

Kyrgyzstan’s presence and participation in the climate arena has however changed drastically, at least for COPs: Kyrgyzstan fielded relatively large delegations at the most recent COPs with a record of 179 delegates in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024. This increase in delegation size reflects the growing overall size of COPs and their change in nature. In recent years, the COPs have become genuine “mega-events”, attracting tens of thousands of participants, many of whom focus on the “circus”: the expo-style pavilions, side events, or bilateral meetings that happen in informal spaces around the actual negotiations (see Bansard 2023).

For Kyrgyzstan, these informal spaces are also of prime importance. They offer opportunities to present Kyrgyzstan to the rest of the world, to penetrate various networks, and to meet bilateral donors as well as international development agencies. Attracting funding remains a key foreign policy objective for Kyrgyzstan, and the climate arena becomes increasingly important as climate finance has moved to the centre of discussions. Having its own pavilion at COP29 in Baku marks the culmination of efforts to showcase Kyrgyzstan’s mountain ecosystems, and the need to protect these, including through funding.

In parallel, Kyrgyzstan has also sought to increase the visibility of mountains in the formal negotiations—which had for a long time ignored mountains altogether. To change this, Kyrgyzstan reached out to other mountainous countries, especially Andorra, Nepal, and Bhutan, to revive a coalition of mountain countries, and officially launched the “the Group of Mountain Partnership” at COP28 in 2023. While efforts to put mountains onto the agenda have proved unsuccessful, the negotiations have taken up the issue in other ways, notably through its links to adaptation. Thus, in 2022, a decision text  specifically mentioned mountains for the first time (UNFCCC 2022), while the SB meeting in 2024 held a full-day expert dialogue on mountains.

A case of “forum extension” rather than “forum shopping”

As can be seen from the above, the climate arena has turned into an alternative venue for Kyrgyzstan’s mountain advocacy. At the same time, its mobilisation in the UNFCCC process does not seem to come at the expense of its diplomatic activities at the UNGA. Quite to the contrary, Kyrgyzstan may even have intensified its mountain advocacy in New York, notably through the 2022 ‘International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development’ and its new Ambassador for mountains.

This parallel activism is surprising, given the small size and limited diplomatic capacities of Kyrgyzstan. We would a prioriexpect Kyrgyzstan to have to select one venue – to “forum shop” (see Murphy and Kellow 2013). As one interviewee puts it, “you can’t be everywhere, be all over the places”. Accordingly, Kyrgyzstan needs to focus scarce diplomatic resources on the platform it deems most suitable to achieving its foreign policy objectives. And for a long time, the UNGA here was the most appropriate and most promising venue.

Yet, as we have shown above, extending mountain advocacy to the UNFCCC rather corresponds to “regime shifting”: a longer-term, iterative process that “broaden(s) the policy spaces within which relevant decisions are made and rules are adopted” (Helfer 2009, 39). As COPs have changed, grown in size, and now increasingly focus on finance, adaptation, and loss and damage, they opened up new opportunities for Kyrgyzstan—while the UNGA remained another important site for its mountain diplomacy. Kyrgyzstan appears to regard these platforms as strategically complementary, recognizing the valuable synergies they offer in advancing its mountain protection agenda. Accordingly, in 2022, it promoted a resolution on sustainable mountain development at COP27 with the aim of securing broad support for its subsequent adoption at the United Nations General Assembly (Desmasures and Klöck 2025).

Conclusions

What can we learn from Kyrgyz mountain advocacy in the UNGA and UN climate negotiations? We here highlight three implications that are not only relevant for policymakers but also for scholars of small states.

First, small states not only choose their battles wisely and focus limited diplomatic capacities on selected priorities. A successful niche diplomacy also means choosing the battlefield wisely and focusing efforts on the venue most appropriate to one’s policy objectives. However, the (perceived) costs and benefits of different venues can change; new opportunities can arise insofar the forums themselves change, as for example the growth of the COPs shows. It is important to be aware of such changes and to react to them, including by re-allocating resources. Interestingly, this does not necessarily mean shifting from one venue to another but can also mean extending diplomatic activities to other venues.

Second, partners and partnerships are key for small states. Kyrgyzstan’s more active role in the climate arena was only possible because it started to work with other mountainous countries, whereas its long silence coincided with a lack of partnerships and coalitions. But strategic relationships need to be both leveraged and initiated: Kyrgyzstan used its experience from New York—where it had successfully launched the Group of Friends of Mountainous Countries and relied on GSLEP and the Mountain Partnership—to capitalize on existing partnerships and to initiate new collaborations in the climate arena.

Third, countries do not only pursue negotiation objectives but also participate in multilateral negotiations for other reasons, such as gaining international visibility (related to status-seeking) and attracting funding, alongside the official discussions. These non-negotiation objectives tend to be ignored in negotiation research, but they matter, particularly for small states (see Thornhallsson et al. 2022). Indeed, beyond the objective of adopting mountain-related resolutions and decisions, Kyrgyzstan has also sought to use the UNGA to trigger funding from other UN agencies, and more recently, the UNFCCC process, to meet with funders and direct finance flows to mountain protection.

Overall, Kyrgyzstan’s mountain diplomacy shows how small states can be surprisingly successful and influential in international affairs (see also e.g. Baillat 2017)—but also how challenging this success is and how much effort and investment it requires.

[1] Kyrgyzstan, like other Central Asian states, emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Many former Soviet republics did not automatically align with traditional Global South coalitions like the G77, which was founded in 1964 by countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America that shared a post-colonial development agenda.