NEW APPOINTMENTS
President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov appointed Shermat Nurmatov Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources of Uzbekistan by the Decree of 28 September.
THE WORLD BANK HELD A WATER DONOR MEETING
The meeting organized by the World Bank Office in Uzbekistan on the issues of water supply to remote regions took place on 20 September. This is the fourth Donor Meeting, which is held every three months in Tashkent.
Donors among representatives of international organizations gather to discuss urgent issues in water sector, and to share experience and results of successful projects. They try to find ways of interaction and cooperation to provide effectiveness of investments.
At this meeting the discussion also touched upon the future role of regional institutions dealing with water supply issues.
THE PRESIDENT OF KAZAKHSTAN HELD A MEETING ON ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM
A meeting on conducting administrative reform took place on 17 September in Astana, at which President N. Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan spoke.
In his speech, the President touched on the issues related to both environmental protection and rational natural resources use.
“At present, the issues of sustainable development are taking on special significance in the context of worldwide trends. In this connection, it is necessary to concentrate the efforts on environmental protection and rational natural resources use.
That is why the Ministry of the Environment should transformed into Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources. Control and supervision functions of the ministries of energy and mineral resources, agriculture, resources conservation, forestry, fishery, water resources, and fauna should be passed to it. Economic functions and agency-level control in the field of forestry, fishery, water resources will remain in the Ministry of Agriculture. In the coming period this ministry should focus on efficiently carrying out agrofood policy, raising the competitiveness of agricultural production in the light of the impending entry into WTO”.
You can find the full text of the speech at: www.cawater-info.net/news/09-2004/22.htm
WORKSHOP ON “GENDER ASPECTS IN ACCESS TO AND MANAGEMENT OF
WATER RESOURCES AT RURAL LEVEL”
Within the framework of the initiative on considering gender problems in water sector of Central Asian countries, it was planned to carry out a series of measures to identify the main problem areas to be considered during the implementation of the project.
The first step was the holding of a special session “Gender and Water in Central Asia” during the regional scientific-practical conference “Water Partnership in Central Asia” in Almaty, May 2004.
A social study of gender aspects in water resources management and use at rural level was held with the support of the Global Water Partnership of Central Asia and Caucasus (GWP CACENA) in Kuva rayon of Ferghana oblast, Uzbekistan, August 2004 to identify diverse needs, roles, opportunities, benefits and problems of men and women in water resources use and management process at community level.
Following the results of this study, SIC ICWC and GWP CACENA held a workshop “Gender Aspects in Water Supply and Water Resources Management at Rural Level” in Ferghana city, 14 September 2004.
Chair of GWP CACENA V.I. Sokolov, ADB Uzbekistan Office gender specialist M.Khudayberdiyeva, UNDP gender adviser D. Alimjanova, specialists of SIC ICWC (S. Mukhamedjanov, D. Ziganshina), SANIIRI (G. Stulina, A. Torguzova), representatives of MAWR Ferghana Oblast Department (A. Fozilov), Ferghana Oblast Statistical Department (G. Gofurova), non-governmental organizations (S.M. Irgasheva, P. Kodirov) as well as farmers and peasants from Kuva rayon took part in the workshop.
The workshop program was intended to provide maximum flexibility in both the content of issues discussed and time spent to discuss them. In the first half of the day, presentations on the notion of gender and its relation with water resources use and management were listened to, the results of researches on “Gender aspects in access to and management of water resources at rural level” in Kuva and Akhunbabayev rayons of Ferghana oblast were presented. Active discussions in the latter half of the day let conclude that gender aspects in water sector are very urgent and require close attention from state structures, non-governmental and donor organizations. Concrete actions necessary for settling the discussed problems in practice were reflected in the decision of the workshop.
WORKSHOP WITHIN THE ECOLOGICAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS COALITION’S PROJECT “RIVER FOR ALL, ALL FOR RIVER”
The 3rd workshop within the Uzbek Ecological Non-Governmental Non-Profit Organizations Coalition’s Project “River for All, All for River” took place in the Information Center (IC) of the State Committee for Nature Conservation of Uzbekistan in Tashkent, 9 September 2004.
The aims of the workshop were to discuss the results and sum up the previous stages of the “River for All, All for River” Project, issues in respect of organizing a concluding conference.
At the round table, a number of matters were considered, in particular:
- quality and reasons for pollution of surface water;
- quality of drinking water, and state of drinking water supply to population;
- role of non-governmental non-profit organizations in raising public awareness of water resources quality and state of good quality drinking water supply;
- legal bases for water resources protection from pollution;
- practice of water polluting enterprises;
- pollution control practice of respective authorities;
- inefficient activities of controlling authorities in preventing excess pollution under legitimate powers;
- other matters (reasons, by which the activities of polluting enterprises do not stop even if there are gross violations of environmental law legislation, competence and position of authorities in this regard; need for updating production and introducing new technologies; opportunities and alternatives of public crediting of measures for water protection; priority directions of environmental policy of the state and so on).
You can find the full report on the workshop at: www.cawater-info.net/news/09-2004/14.htm
WORKSHOP FOR BASIN WATER AUTHORITIES
A workshop for Basin Water Authorities (BWAs) of Kazakhstan was held in Almaty, 22-23 September 2004.
The aim of the workshop was to reconcile the way of cooperation between the Kazakh Committee for Water Resources, BWAs and UNDP Project in three main project goals: developing a national plan for integrated water resources management; activities of Basin Councils; and access to drinking water.
At the workshop the following matters were considered:
- What is IWRM?
- Process of creating Basin Councils in Kazakhstan
- Membership of Basin Councils and their main functions
- Specialist training problems
- Role of social study in the project on the access to drinking water
- Necessity of public information and awareness.
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