OREANDA-NEWS. October 31, 2014. The draft Law "On official development assistance" was approved at the plenary session of the Majilis.

"The purpose of the bill is the legal regulation of official development assistance. Its uniqueness not only for national legislation, but also for the entire CIS is worth nothing. In this space, only two countries have a national system of development assistance: Russia and Azerbaijan. But even they do not have full-fledged relevant laws," Foreign Affairs Minister of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov said presenting the bill.

According to him, the bill primarily is aimed at systematizing of Kazakhstan’s official development assistance to other countries, because the national system of ODA is one of the attributes of a developed country.

The Minister noted that the main focus of official development assistance provided by Kazakhstan will be Central Asia, Afghanistan and possibly Caucasus in the near future.

"It will serve the purposes of strengthening unconditional regional leadership of Kazakhstan, forming a good neighbourliness belt around our country. Kazakhstan's official development assistance will be a kind of our soft power in the region," the Minister said.

The bill defines the competence of the Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an authorized body, and other state bodies in the sphere of official development assistance. Government provides for establishment of a legal entity - operator, whose task will be to participate in implementation of state policy in this sphere.

Majilismen also reviewed and approved consequential amendments to the legislation.