Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. 

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, friends,

It is a great pleasure to be with you in Bishkek, and an honour to help open this International Conference on Mountains, Climate and Health in Central Asia.

Let me begin by thanking the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic for its continuing leadership on the mountain agenda, and the University of Central Asia for bringing us together.

My thanks also to everyone who travelled here to contribute your expertise, perspectives and commitment to advancing this important agenda.

I come to this conference, admittedly, not as a specialist, but with a great respect: a great respect for the landscapes that we are discussing, for the communities who know them best and for the people in this room who have devoted their life’s work to understanding and supporting them.

This is a fitting place for such a gathering. In Kyrgyzstan and across Central Asia, mountains are not simply a feature of the landscape. They are the landscape.

Mountains are part of daily life bringing challenges but also opportunities.

They shape identity, memory, livelihoods and the bonds between communities that live amongst them.

And they also remind us how closely human life is tied to the natural systems around it.

One of my own reflections, as I have prepared for today, is that climate change in mountain regions cannot be understood only through figures, maps, or projections – important as those are. It is also understood through the daily experience of the communities that live there: through changes in water, food, mobility, health and the confidence with which people can plan for the future.

Across Central Asia, mountain communities have long demonstrated resilience in the face of environmental shocks and uncertainty. Yet rising temperatures, glacier retreat, changing rainfall and snowfall, water stress, food insecurity and more frequent extreme events are placing that resilience under growing strain.

These are not only scientific or environmental challenges. They are human challenges. They raise fundamental questions about security, opportunity and the future of mountain communities.

Can a family depend on the water that it needs?

Can a child reach school or a clinic safely?

Can farmers plan their season?

Can communities remain rooted in the places they call home?

Those questions give this conference its profound importance.

The theme of mountains, climate and health seems to me especially powerful because it asks us not to separate issues that people experience together. A change in a glacier is also a change in a water system. A change in water can become a change in nutrition, sanitation, livelihoods, or public health. A strain on infrastructure often leads to strain on families.

These connections are complex, and many of you understand them in ways far more detailed and practical than I do. What I would simply offer is that our response should also be connected. Science matters deeply. So do policy and investment. But so too does listening – to communities, to young people, to local knowledge and to those closest to the changes we are trying to understand.

This spirit is very close to the purpose of the University of Central Asia. UCA was created to serve the mountain societies of this region – not from a distance, but from within. Its research and educational programmes reflect a belief that knowledge is most valuable when it is rooted in place, shared across borders and used in service of humanity’s well-being.

A quarter of a century ago, my father, His Late Highness the Aga Khan IV, spoke passionately about his commitment to mountain communities. He said:

“While mountains often act as formidable barriers within and between countries, they also represent a continuous link across national boundaries.”

I find that notion very moving. And it feels even more relevant today than it did then.

If there is one lesson that seems clear, it is that these challenges cannot be addressed by any one institution, or any one country, acting alone. Health systems, ecosystems and livelihoods – just as with rivers and with the glaciers – do not stop neatly at national borders. In mountain regions, cooperation is a practical necessity.

I am pleased that this conference contributes to the wider path toward the Bishkek+25 Global Mountain Summit to be held in 2027. It reflects the Kyrgyz Republic’s continuing role in keeping mountain societies on the global agenda. But just as importantly, it creates space for practical exchange – for turning evidence into action, and concern into preparedness.

As we begin, I hope we can hold two thoughts together.

The first is that mountain communities are facing real and urgent pressures. Those pressures deserve honest attention, sustained investment and serious policy engagement informed by evidence-based research.

The second is that mountain communities are not defined by vulnerability alone. They are places of resilience, knowledge, adaptation, enterprise and care for the natural world. Increasingly, they are also places of opportunity. For generations, people in these landscapes have lived with uncertainty and with change. Their experience is not only something to protect. It is something from which the wider world can learn.

The work ahead will demand science and policy, but also patience and humility. It will demand stronger institutions, better data, deeper cooperation and investment in young people.

Above all, it will demand us to remember that climate resilience is not an abstract goal. It is about families, communities and the right to live with security, in good health and with hope for the future.

Over these two days, this conference, convened by the University of Central Asia and its academic and development partners, will deepen understanding, and identify practical steps to enhance the quality of life for mountain communities of Central Asia and beyond.

On behalf of the Aga Khan Development Network, I’d like to thank all of those who have made this gathering possible. 

I wish you a thoughtful and productive set of discussions.

Thank you.