Water Unites

– Cross-sectoral management involving different economic sectors as well as upstream
and downstream users;
– Demand-oriented management, including cost recovery mechanisms and water-efficient
technologies;
– Participative management ensuring that the interests of all stakeholder are taken into
account to ensure equitable water access;
– Decentralized management at lowest appropriate level.
IWRM is a set of principles, but it is important to note that these are not intended as strict rules that
should be applied uniformly around the world. Rather, the principles should provide the basis on
which rules adapted to the conditions and needs of the respective country are formulated.
At the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the plan
of implementation included a call to all countries to «develop Integrated Water Resource
Management (IWRM) and water efficiency plans by 2005». Implementation of IWRM was
also initiated in Central Asia. As in all the other countries around the world that embarked
on this process, it proved to be a challenging process which requires a long-term perspective
and won’t bring quick successes. Many of the IWRM principles are a challenge to traditional
fragmented sectoral management and top-down approaches. It is therefore not surprising
that its implementation is not easy and meeting the IWRM ideals is a long process.
All the Central Asian states have acknowledged the importance of the IWRM principles.
But apart from Kazakhstan, none of the countries so far has an overall coherent and
feasible IWRM plan or strategy at the government level with adequate financial support and
concrete implementation. Still, all countries have undertaken efforts that were supported by
donors. In late 2009, the Tajik government published a government declaration on development
of an Irrigation Management Transfer Strategy and IWRM Strategy. Uzbekistan also
started the preparation of an IWRM plan in 2009 with the support of UNDP. The Kyrgyz
Water Code of 2005 prescribes IWRM elements like the establishment of a coordinating
crosssectoral National Water Council and the delineation of river basins with the nomination
of River Basin Administrations and River Basin Councils. But so far all these provisions
have not yet been implemented. In August 2011, Turkmenistan established a working group
to develop an IWRM roadmap. The most advanced country is Kazakhstan. It has established
basin-based water resources management with River Basin Administrations for the
management of the eight river basins in the country. The Water Code also provides for the
establishment of River Basin Councils as advisory bodies for each of the basins and some
are already working. In the framework of the EU Water Initiative, most Central Asian countries
have started a National Policy Dialogue on IWRM facilitated by UNECE. 2
Apart from that, there are many different kind of projects subsumed under the title
«IWRM», often focusing on a specific aspect like development of Water User Associations
(WUAs), river basin management, mini hydropower projects and rural water supply. The
different understanding by different donors and government agencies is a typical phenomenon
of IWRM. It increases the need to have a sound national framework in which these
activities can be coordinated.
2 Europe Aid 2010, Nikolayenko 2009
The role of international players
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