Aigul Kaptayeva is a Regional Advisor for ICNL’s Central Asia program, which assists in developing a comprehensive legal and fiscal structure to support and strengthen the CSO sector in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Her personal expertise relates to philanthropy, mechanisms for government-CSO cooperation, and the general legal framework for CSOs in Central Asia. Ms. Kaptayeva was a member of the official working group for the development of amendments to the Kazakh Law on State Social Contracting, resulting in significant improvements to this mechanism in 2011-2012. Ms. Kaptayeva has written several analytical articles on the state social contracting system, as well as on the development of charity in Kazakhstan. Ms. Kaptayeva earned degrees from the Kazakh State Academy of Management (BA in international economics) and Kazakh Humanitarian Law University in 2006 (BA in law).