Transfer of responsibility for water management in Central Asia was initiated in the mid-1990s. The process has proceeded at different paces in different locations with substantial inputs from donors and various levels of engagement of stakeholders. However, what is clear is that there is an inadequate understanding of the assets that shape the livelihoods of rural farming households and the activities that they undertake to create an income; information that is critical to ensuring effective water management and reducing poverty. This project intends to fill that knowledge gap by undertaking a combination of rapid rural appraisal and participatory rural appraisal, to better understand rural livelihoods. This knowledge will result in better targeting of water reform interventions such as the development of effective water user associations (WUAs) and policy recommendations to improve rural livelihoods and reduce poverty. The project will be undertaken in the Ferghana Valley in several districts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Background

This project is intended to build on and support the on-going work of the Integrated Water Resource Management in Ferghana Valley (IWRM-Ferghana) Project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and undertaken by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Scientific Information Centre of the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination ((SIC-ICWC). The IWRM-Ferghana Project aims to support reforms in the water sector, and has undertaken a detailed analysis of the legal, institutional, economic, financial and managerial issues in water management, as well as an analysis and evaluation of earlier experiences, methodologies and systems developed by other donors and regional and state organizations. The IWRM-Ferghana Project subsequently developed water user associations (WUAs), canal management authorities (CMOs) and has undertaken substantial social mobilization to ensure their effective functioning.

The next phase of the project is to “broaden and deepen institutional, legal and managerial IWRM principles and practices in selected areas of the Ferghana Valley to achieve real public participation on all levels of the water hierarchy, and managerial and financial sustainability; improve land and water productivity and equal and efficient water use on a broader scale and contribute to poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability”.

At the local level this requires a thorough understanding of how farmers currently manage water for agriculture; the complex nature of their livelihoods assets and activities; and how they are influenced by external factors including legislation, institutional norms and social structures. These factors are now well understood in the project pilot canal areas, as work has been undertaken in those areas for over four years, however they are not well understood throughout the Ferghana Valley, which is a diverse area encompassing seven provinces in the three project countries, various types of water users as well as differing water supplies. To effectively support water reforms in the sector, improve equity of water distribution and increase water productivity, it is essential to understand these factors using proper survey sampling techniques. This will facilitate more effective targeting of interventions or policy recommendations, and ultimately improve livelihoods.

There are a number of other water resources projects being undertaken in the Ferghana Valley by different international organizations featuring varying levels of livelihoods or social analysis. Therefore, the first phase of this particular project will be to review what has been done to date elsewhere. However, initial discussions with officials of Provincial Water Management Organizations (PWMO) by the project countries as well as project staff and farmers suggest there are some certain gaps and inadequacies in local level analysis of needs, social structures, incomes and people’s ability to pay, which has resulted in projects not meeting their objectives.