The OECD GREEN Action Task Force implemented a project in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that focused on water security achievement by enforcing the economic and financial aspects of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)  in support of both countries  progress towards adaption to  climate change. The project considered  improving local legislation, rules and institutional arrangements in the water sector, better application of economic instruments, developing new norms and business models in water supply and sanitation, fostering the cohesion of water-energy-food security and the capacity development of interested parties.

The main objective of the project in Kyrgyzstan was to help achieve greater levels of water security through a sound reform of rural water supply and sanitation (WSS) and an introduction of sustainable business models for operating, maintaining and financing water supply and sanitation systems in small towns and rural areas in Kyrgyzstan. A range of Guidelines for WSS reform was developed during this project which were tested on several selected villages to examine their efficiency.

The project in Kyrgyzstan also developed a set of national indicators of water, energy and food (WEF) security with the goal to improve the coherence between the respective sectoral policies in line with the “Nexus approach”.

Kyrgyzstan lacks knowledge and expertise  in managing economic and financial aspects of Water Resources Management (WRM). It was decided to develop training materials in this field and to test them in the framework of pilot trainings for senior officials from government bodies and other organisations responsible for application of economic instruments (EIs) for WRM.

Training packages were developed on  two topics:

• New norms for design and construction of small-scale WSS systems.
• Economic analysis and instruments for WRM.

In the framework of the same project, the OECD provided support to the Agency of Land Reclamation and Irrigation under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan in drafting guiding principles for strengthening the economic dimension of the irrigation sector reform in 2016-2017. A policy package included recommendations for revising a tariff methodology for the irrigation sector and a need for capacity development of key decision makers in this regard – the Antimonopoly Service under the Government of Tajikistan.

The OECD helped the Government of Tajikistan in reviewing methodologies and rules for irrigation bulk water supply tariff calculation by developing methodological and practical tools for strengthening the capacities to monitor and regulate the performance of bulk irrigation water supply organisation and preparing the draft of a Government Resolution.

The overall project was implemented though National Policy Dialogues (NPDs) that are carried out approximately once per year in each country respectively. The project was implemented with the support of Finland through the FinWater WEI II programme. Further details can be found here.

Further Reading

• Policy Perspectives for Irrigation Sector in Tajikistan: A paper for Decision Makeres (OECD Publication)
• Together Towards Greater Water Security (Regional Conference)
• Reforming Economic Instruments for Water Resources Management in Kyrgyzstan (OECD Publication)
• Improving the Use of Economic Instruments for Water Resource Management in Kyrgyzstan (OECD Publication)