World Bank Project Appraisal Document - GAFSP

learned from countries with water management issues similar to those in Tajikistan will be an
important element of national capacity building, particularly in areas such as national water laws,
water management institutions and water use regulations.
38. Support to establish the Ministry of Water Resources. Under the proposed water sector reforms,
the MAWRM will be transformed into a Ministry of Water Resources with responsibility for strategic
planning, policy and regulatory functions in the water sector. The water sector will undergo radical
change and reforms, adopting an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approach and
moving away from the management of water resources according to administrative boundaries to
management by hydrological boundaries, through establishment of River Basin Organizations. The
institutional reforms of the water sector provides for clear separation of roles and responsibilities
between policy and guidance (through a Water and Energy Council), policy development and
regulation (through Ministry of Water Resources in line with IWRM principles) and water delivery
(through independent organizations – Mirob for irrigation water delivery) and operations. To support
this process, the project will assist the MAWRM to identify and transfer the policy and regulatory
roles that will reside with the MWRM, and to re-assign other roles and responsibilities to other
elements of the new institutional structure for water resource management. Transformation of the
MAWRM into the MWRM may also require the transfer of some policy making and regulatory tasks
currently assigned to other line Ministries involved in the water sector (e.g. responsibility for
regulation of water abstraction permits for surface and groundwater). This re-assignment of roles and
responsibilities will be a challenge. Current water resource management functions are dispersed
among several agencies, with significant overlap and duplication of functions, roles and
responsibilities. These roles will have to be re-assigned to the new institutional framework, which
includes the National Water and Energy Council, MWR, River Basin Commissions and River Basin
Management Agencies. The project will assist GoT to draft the charters, decrees, amendments and
other regulations required to formally establish the MWR.
39. Support for the establishment of a Water Resources Information Center. The project will
provide support to MAWRM or it successor to establish a consolidated water resources database as the
basis for national water resources planning and programming. Multiple institutions are currently
involved in water resources monitoring and data collection, which is often conducted for a limited
number of parameters and with limited geographical coverage. No consolidated system is in place for
data collection, management and data sharing.
40. The water resources database will be developed through the coordinated acquisition of water
resources data from all relevant organizations. To this end the MIWRM will coordinate closely with
other information centers pertaining to the water sector and institutions dealing with the monitoring of
water quantity and quality; and develop effective procedures for data sharing between agencies. The
database will be developed as a spatial data facility to allow the consolidation, exchange and use of
geospatial data and related information resources across an information sharing community. The
database is expected to be accessible to registered users and the public in a hierarchical manner.
41. Initially, database development will focus on collecting data for the Kafernigan basin. The
database will include information on the hydrographic network, available hydrometric data, the
existing quantity and quality monitoring network, delineation and characterization of protected areas,
water resource management infrastructure (dams, irrigation, and hydropower plants); water abstraction
information by location and time; and the location of known point pollution sources, including the
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