Objective A serious challenge of our time, threatening the whole of humanity, is the lack of food. The aggravation of this problem in many countries is caused by climate change, natural and man-made disasters, deterioration of the epidemiological and geopolitical situation. Therefore, food security is of great importance for achieving global Sustainable Development Goals. The purpose of the article is to study the problem of food security and self-sufficiency as a factor of the country’s sustainable development, develop an author's methodology and assess the level of food self-sufficiency in Kazakhstan, substantiate ways to improve it. Hypothesis Proof/refutation of the need to increase food self-sufficiency in order to achieve country’s sustainable development. Methods The author's methodology for assessing food self-sufficiency by individual product groups. Information A comparative analysis of existing methods, official statistical data, FAO data, a list of socially significant food products, physiological norms of food consumption in Kazakhstan. Results Calculations showed an increase in the level of Kazakhstan’s self-sufficiency for most types of socially significant food products in 2010–2022. However, there are big differences across the Kazakhstan’s regions. The level of self-sufficiency was very high in 5 regions, and in 2 western regions there was a very low level of self-sufficiency in most types of products, except meat. Conclusions To improve food security and ensure sustainable development of Kazakhstan, it is recommended to strengthen the state’s regulatory role in the development of the agro-industrial complex, cooperation between agricultural producers and processing enterprises, the development of international food trade.

With the development of industry, the industrialization of agriculture, the strengthening of Industry 4.0 trends in all countries of the world, the trends of migration of rural residents to cities, and the pace of urbanization are increasing. The purpose of the article was to study the main factors determining the trends, intensity, and specificity of urbanization processes in Kazakhstan. The methods of retrospective analysis, analogies, logical analysis, generalizations, demographic and economic statistics, index, graphic, comparative analysis, absolute and relative indicators of demography and migration, methods of the theory of differentiated urbanization are used. Specific methods were applied to calculate the coefficients of urbanization intensity. To achieve the goal, a comparative analysis of theoretical views on trends and factors of urbanization was carried out. Based on statistical data, a comparative analysis of the birth rate, the level, and quality of life, the level of poverty in cities and villages of Kazakhstan was carried out. The dynamics, orientation, and territorial distribution of urbanization processes are revealed. To determine the hierarchies of cities depending on the population, Zipf curves were calculated, ranking of cities was carried out. It is concluded that the processes of urbanization in the country are uneven, as well as that the factors of urbanization are fully manifested in Kazakhstan’s conditions and determine its trends and intensity. Based on the identified trends and problems of urbanization, recommendations on the choice of the main directions and mechanisms for regulating the processes of urbanization in Kazakhstan are substantiated.

In recent years, inequality in the economic and social development of regions and population has increased in Kazakhstan. The purpose of this paper is to assess the level of differences between the regions of Kazakhstan in the field of social, economic, innovation, and infrastructural inclusion and offer recommendations for reducing regional inequality. The research hypothesis is that the high level of economic inequality of the regions determines the high level of differences in the field of social inclusion, inclusion in the field of infrastructure and innovation. The assessment of regional differences was carried out according to four groups of economic, social, innovative, and infrastructural indicators; private and integral indices of inclusive development of regions were calculated. The gaps between the highest and lowest index by groups were revealed: social inclusion – 3.37; economic inclusion – 7.45; infrastructure inclusion – 2.96; innovative inclusion – 6.67. A map of inclusive development of the regions of Kazakhstan is developed. Estimates showed that despite the large gap in the economic development of the regions, the gap in social and infrastructural development remained smaller. In cases where the gap between the maximum and minimum values of the index in the regions increased, more and more regions found themselves in the group with a low level of inclusive development. AcknowledgmentThis study is funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No. AP09259004 “Priorities and mechanisms of inclusive regional development of Kazakhstan in the context of overcoming the economic recession”).We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and issue editors for their helpful comments.