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Integrated Water Resources Management
in the Ferghana Valley (IWRM-Ferghana)
(since 2001)
OVERVIEW
The Integrated Water Resources Management in Ferghana Valley (IWRM - Ferghana) project is designed to improve the effectiveness of water resources management through the introduction of integrated water management (IWRM) principles in the Ferghana Valley shared by three Central Asian countries - Kyr-gyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The project addresses possibilities for transparent, fair and efficient water al-location mechanisms among water users and between the project countries with due regard to the local needs for water saving, improvement of soil fertility and pertinent environmental issues through the reorganisation of water admi-nistration and the promotion and institutional build-up of water users'associations and unified governance and management structures for three pilot main canals - one per each project country.
Based on successful experiences of the previous three phases of the project since 2001, it has now moved to Phase IV (from 1 May, 2008 until 31 December, 2010 ) for further deepening and widening the achievements.
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GOAL OF THE PROJECT
to contribute to more secure livelihoods, increased environmental sustainability, greater social harmony, and to support rural restructuring in Central Asian countries through improved effectiveness of water resources management making Ferghana Valley as the role-model.
Figure. Map of Ferghana Valley
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The collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the previous financing mechanisms have left the water management institutions high and dry. Further, the land reforms in independent Central Asia has led to the emergence of numerous medium to smallholder farmers, thus, putting the government-run and administrative (district and provincial) area based water departments under immense institutional stress. Moreover, the river and canal systems, once managed as a unitary system was cut- across by newly established national borders of the independent countries. Existing knowledge systems too, have been divided by national borders. Each country, pursuing its own path and speed towards market economies, set their own priorities. These priorities were not the same for each country and at a times in conflict with each others’ interests. For instance due to changes in the water-energy terms of trade, upstream Kyrgyzstan changed the reservoir management within its territories giving priority to hydropower generation in winter, though those reservoirs were originally planned for irrigation in summer times in lower Syr Darya - Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. This situation created conflicts not only among water users but also between countries of CA due to inadequate allocation of water, environmental problems and social imbalance. To address these issues in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the “Integrated Water Resources Management in the Ferghana Valley project” was initiated by the Scientific Information Center of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination in Central Asia (SIC ICWC) and IWMI and financially and strategically supported by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC). The main purpose of this project is to contribute to more secure livelihoods, increased environmental sustainability, and greater social harmony, through improved effectiveness of water resources management using IWRM principles.
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