Ms. Jamila Asanova Executive Director of the Civil Society Development Association (ARGO). Jamila has 25 years’ experience in the development sector. As the Executive Director of ARGO, Jamila has expanded the umbrella organization to cover eight Central Asian and regional countries with over 2,000 member organizations and activists; managed large-scale regional projects.

She was the steward of the Civil Society Innovation Initiatives (Innovation for Change) global governance board, uniting 7 South Global regional civil society development Hubs. She is a Jamila is high-level advocate both within Kazakhstan and internationally, through membership in various national councils under the Ministries of Kazakhstan; and the first representative of Kazakhstani civil society to speak at the UN High Level Political Forum, in 2019.

Director, “Partnership for Innovations” Program, Director of ARGO Regional Programs. Winner, The International Goldman Environmental Prize (2005). Since 2012, Ms. Atakhanova has led regional programs at ARGO, including the development and strategic management of “Partnership for Innovations - P4I” Program (2016-2020), in Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan.

A biologist by education, Ms. Atakhanova started her career examining scientific research on human radiation genetic effects. She engaged in public activities by organizing the Karaganda Ecological Center, developing democratic principles based on relations between the state and society in the protection of environmental values.

Ms. Atakhanova is a recognized leader of the nationwide campaign against radioactive waste import in Kazakhstan and co-coordinator of the EcoForum antinuclear campaign, a public association national network in Kazakhstan.

Chief Accountant and Financial Adviser. Ms. Akynova supervises all economic issues, including financial management, accounting, taxation, auditing, and liaison work with all financial institutes and partners. She is a financial expert with 25years of work experience in finance and accounting.

Sergey Petrov has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 12 years. He started his career with the Delegation of the European Union in the Republic of Kazakhstan in the position of Finance and Contracts Officer. He was responsible for 82 projects, totaling to EUR50 million.

For the last 8 years, he worked as a Regional Finance Manager in the Dutch Royal Association for Combating Tuberculosis (KNCV) in three USAID 5-year projects.

He has experience in working in projects of such donors as the Global Fund, WHO, UnitAid.

Administrative Director. Ms. Yakovleva works in Association since 2005. Ms. Yakovleva runs all ARGO administrative and logistical issues and ensures uninterrupted operation of the office. In addition, she is a principal operational manager of all the activities and events held under the auspices of ARGO. She has extensive experience in conducting conferences, seminars, trainings, and events, which allows her to solve operational issues in a prompt, professional and effective manner.

Inkara Mukatova is a Regional Coordinator of the Innovation for Change (I4C) Central Asian Hub.

She has 10-year experience in supervising regional and international projects related to human rights, including civil society and private sector projects. She managed a regional project in Penal Reform International. Also, she worked on child rights with the communities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In addition, Inkara was involved in the UN Development Program initiatives on energy efficiency promotion in Kazakhstan.

Inkara has extensive experience in promoting the SDGs at the national and local levels through various projects and initiatives. She attended a number of workshops on capacity building for SDG promotion, using a human rights approach, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inkara also prepared a report on monitoring the COVID-19 impact on democracy and human rights.

Aziza is a Program Manager of the Partnership for Innovations project (P4I - 2016-2021). Among her duties and responsibilities was overall management of P4I grantors’ program activity.

Aziza Khoshimova has broad experience in developing and implementing educational projects focused on the development of human rights, and women and youth empowerment in Tajikistan. She was a participant of such American programs as FLEX, IVLP, GES and Hubert H. Under the Humphrey Fellowship she studied at Boston University and was awarded a certificate on project management, leadership and entrepreneurship.

Small Grants Manager in the Regional Team of the Program for the conservation of key biodiversity areas in Central Asian mountainous regions.

Tatyana has an MBA degree (Finance) and has more than 15-year experience in administering grants in projects of the World Wildlife Fund, UN Development Program and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

He is a Grant Manager of the Innovation for Change (I4C) project. His duties include monitoring and verification of reports on I4C grantors’ activity.

Yerlan is a distance learning manager and deals with promoting the CSO Web Academy training online platform in ARGO.

Yerlan Sultashev has a master degree in Economics, with an area of specialization in Marketing. He has work experience in marketing departments of such large Kazakhstan companies as Alma TV and Aviata.

Anton is a System Administrator who performs work on computer maintenance, enterprise network, purchase and repair of equipment, and installation of software. His work experience in IT is more than 9 years.

He has bachelor and master degreeы in Radio Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications, and is a certified IT specialist.

Erlen is a Communications Specialist, and has worked with ARGO Team since January 2019. He started his activity in the Partnership for Innovations Program, and now continues working in the Innovation for Change.

Starting from 2013, he was an editor-in-chief of the national mass media in Kazakhstan - Prosports.kz, "Komsomolskaya Pravda in Kazakhstan", "Argumenty and Fakty - Kazakhstan" and Optimism.kz.