Towards more sustainable water governance

Key messages

• Common pool resources such as irrigation can be governed via common property regimes, where rights and duties are adequately enforced. 
• Institutional change in the irrigation sector of Central Asia occurred without considering informal institutions, such as respect for local traditions, culture, and norms. These reforms were mainly targeted at adopting approaches based on other governments’ experiences of what was considered “successful” (e.g. in Spain and Turkey). 
• In sustainable water management, an important role is played by the indigenous knowledge and informal institutions that exist in the Central Asian region.

Background and project goal

In the mid-1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian countries embarked on agricultural reform. Former large-scale collective farms were transformed into different modes of individual farming. This situation has brought chaos and conflict, especially in on-farm water allocation. Water User Associations (WUAs) were created to solve the problems. The main aim of this research is to understand and compare key potentials and limitations of WUAs in Central Asia by assessing the role of institutions and related socio-economic and environmental outcomes in view of enhancing collective action aiming at more sustainable water governance of on-farm irrigation water management.

Methods

The comparative case study approach is based on a household survey and semi-structured interviews with WUA members, and government and private development organizations.

Summary of results

The table below shows an initial comparison of the application of common-pool resource design principles in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, The Tajik and Uzbek case studies were in the Ferghana Valley, while the WUAs in the Kyrgyz case study were outside the Ferghana Valley part of Kyrgyzstan.

Project duration: 2013 - 2018