IKROMKHON NAZHMIDDINOV WAS APPOINTED MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND WATER RESOURCES OF UZBEKISTAN
Ikromkhon Khoshimkhonovich Nazhmiddinov was appointed Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan signed the respective Decree on 1 July 2004.
Before (from 25 March 2004) Saydullo Begaliyev had occupied the position of Minister, who was confirmed as khokim (governor) of Andijan oblast on 25 May this year.
CONFERENCE ON EFFECTIVE WATER AND POWER RESOURCES USE IN THE CIS
A scientific-applied conference on the “Problems of efficient water and power resources use in the CIS and providing safe operation of hydraulic structures” was held on 11 June 2004 in Dushanbe within the framework of the 25th meeting of the CIS Electric Power Council.
CEOs of power sectors, representatives of water and environmental agencies, science and industry of the CIS, executive powers of the International Fund for the Aral Sea Saving (EC IFAS, SIC ICWC) participated in the conference. The problems of hydropower and water sector, ways to solve them were discussed, and development prospects and specific plans for expanding the collaboration between the CIS in this field were drawn up. Special attention was given to the issues of water-energy nexus and integrated water resources use in Central Asian states.
The Appeal of the conference participants to the Heads of Governments of Central Asian countries and the Russian Federation to draw attention to the problems of hydropower and water sector of the states in the region, give a political impulse to plans for developing power sectors of the region comprehensively taking into account interests of other sectors (agriculture, water sector, etc.) and the environment, and provide economic assistance in implementing them was accepted. Noting the complexity and inconsistency of inter-sectoral relations in regard to providing rational water and power balance of Central Asian countries, the Conference draw attention to a real possibility of solving these problems based on the consensus.
INTENSIFICATION OF THE ACTIVITY ON GENDER EQUALITY PROBLEM
IN WATER SECTOR OF CENTRAL ASIA
An integrated gender approach was confirmed as a global strategy for achieving gender equality in the field of economic development by the Action Platform of the Fourth UN Conference on Women Status in Peking in 1995. The tasks of an integrated gender approach are specially considered in paragraph 164 of Chapter “Women and Economy”. In Gender Analysis Concept of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), it is stipulated that “economically, ecologically and socially effective development requires full reorientation of efforts to expanding women capabilities”. Undoubtedly, sustainable economic development is achieved only at the level of social activity, taking into account interests and needs of all social groups and using their potential for the sake of the development. Especially when reforms are being carried out it is important to create prerequisites for identifying a real contribution of women and men to economic development and stimulating their participation in the development. Activity in this direction is being implemented in Central Asian states as well. The Decree of the President of Uzbekistan dated 25 May 2004 “About additional measures to support the activity of the Women Committee of Uzbekistan” can be called one of the recent achievements, in which the necessity of actions for “raising the role of women in modernization and democratic renovation of the society, public and governmental construction” is noted. Intensifying social and political activity of women should depend on the initiative from below in this regard, but this requires public awareness of gender equality problem.
There is still an erroneous opinion that an integrated gender approach is only to expand women participation, though it is much broader and considers different social roles of men and women. A need for taking gender prospects into account during the implementation of policies, programs and projects in agriculture and, especially, water sector of Central Asia has formed. Gender prospect should become integral when policy is being developed in this field, and include researches, analysis, planning and institutional development. Recognizing the barest necessity to review gender equality issues, many international organizations and financial institutes are actively introducing them in their policies. Among them, the Asian Development Bank accepted “Women Role in Development” Policy as far back as 1986, and did it anew – “Gender and development” - in 1998. On 26-28 May 2004 in Almaty, the Asian Development Bank supported holding a session on the problem of gender equality in water sector in the course of regional conference “Water partnership in Central Asia” to realize new initiative “Gender and Water in Central Asia”.
The participants of the session raised many urgent issues related to the problem of gender equality in water sector, among which a special emphasis was placed on the lack of relevant information, shortage of basic knowledge and skills of women to conduct agricultural activity, low self-rating and inactivity of women, insufficient representation of women in authorities at diverse levels. So, as it was supposed, the main objective of the initiative should be to inform the community of the problem of gender equality in water sector. For that, it is planned to previously teach trainers, who could inform a greater number of persons in Central Asian countries. Also, it is planned to carry out a statistical analysis of the countries on the situation, publish reviews and scientific developments. In our opinion, exchange of information and establishment of contacts between water sector specialists will facilitate accelerating the promotion of women and changing social aims.
To develop the initiative, the Scientific-Information Center of ICWC set up a web-site dedicated to gender problems - www.gender.cawater-info.net
NEW PUBLICATIONS
At the end of June a book titled “Drainage in the Aral Sea basin towards the strategy for sustainable development” (group of authors under the editorship of Prof. V.A. Dukhovny), prepared by the Scientific-Information Center of ICWC was published.
Intensive development of irrigation in the 20th century, especially in the latter half, and development of new irrigable lands in Hunger, Karshi, Jizak, Sherabad steppes, Karakum and Kzylkum canal zones, Central Ferghana, Asht massif in Tajikistan brought the problem of drainage to the forefront in the region. Irrigation systems became integrated drainage-irrigation and reclamation systems, where only joint operation and management of drainage and irrigation networks let create a background for sustainable agricultural production and land fertility maintenance. Scale of the creation of these systems was unique – up to 60,000 ha a year!
The collapse of the USSR and transition to the independence were accompanied by the breaking of all usual and established rules of operation and repair; weakening of economic and organizational basis of agricultural and water sectors, economic and financial provision of water sector organs, earlier exploiting these types of drainage, and the whole national potential. As a result, the rate of restoration and development of drainage dropped to zero, operation costs reduced by dozens of times, reclamation service sharply weakened that certainly resulted in the growth in salinization and waterlogging as well as loss of land productivity. One should be surprised how a cancerous growth of salinization did not cover all the lands under these conditions at a 30-50% operational capability of drainage systems, though such examples exists.
Under the current conditions there is a very important task to organize an activity for saving reclamation fund sustainability under the above-mentioned circumstances by:
- attracting the attention of “decision-makers” to the problem of drainage, maintaining and developing it;
- finding organizational forms of combining governmental and private participation (first, of land water users) in the rehabilitation, repair, operation and maintenance of drainage in the context of transition to market economy;
- training people (operatives and water users) to combine a good management of irrigation and drainage water to effectively grow crops at low water use, keep drainage through the application of low-cost methods, utterly reduce salt exchange between groundwater and aeration zone, on the one hand, and between irrigated massifs and river, on the other hand;
- organizing the management of collector-drainage flows: their amounts, release to rivers, limiting within the framework of the basin and basin organizations.
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