In recent years the government has broadly followed the reform prescriptions of the international financial institutions (IFIs), enabling Tajikistan to record robust economic growth and stabilise its currency. In the medium term, however, government policy is likely to be dominated by periodic bouts of crisis management, with Tajikistan reliant on the support of international aid agencies as it attempts to avoid a repeat of the energy and food crises seen in the winter of 2007/08. Tajikistan remains dependent on international aid to tackle issues of food supplies, infrastructure repair and capacity-building.

Following advice from the IFIs-central among them the IMF-for several years Tajikistan has been pursuing a policy of keeping the fiscal stance tight to help to contain external debt. In April 2009 it reached agreement with the IMF for a US$116m loan under a three-year poverty reduction and growth facility (PRGF), which has since been replaced by an extended credit facility (ECF) and increased to US$161m. However, in view of the economic hardship caused by the global economic downturn, the long-term goal of structural reform will need to be balanced against preventing a rise in social and political instability. The effects on the population of structural reforms, such as raising electricity tariffs closer to cost-recovery levels, will need to be offset by significant increases in spending on social security, education and healthcare. The authorities are likely to keep increasing state-sector wages, pensions and other benefits, as they did in 2010.

Because of the energy crisis, which continued throughout 2008 and into early 2009, the authorities place greater emphasis than before on plans to develop energy resources and infrastructure, under which the government is pursuing a debt-based strategy, including large-scale borrowing on concessional terms from China. However, progress on the country's largest project, the construction of a hydroelectric plant at Roghun, is likely to remain slow until a foreign investor is found, despite government efforts to finance the construction domestically.