Making a Regional Water Deal Work

24-Oct-06

Central Asia’s water will only be shared efficiently if the concerns of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the two countries where the bulk of water sources are located, are given the same priority as those of their bigger neighbours, analysts say.

Prime ministers from the region will discuss a strategy to use Central Asia’s water and energy resources effectively when they meet at a Eurasian Economic Community, Eurasec, forum in Moscow on October 27.

The idea of a regional water and energy consortium was conceived by the Kazak, Kyrgyz and Uzbek presidents as long ago as 1997. An agreement was signed in 1998, and Tajikistan added its name the following year. However, it was not until summer 2006 that the idea was revived by Russia, at a Eurasec summit in Sochi. At the beginning of September, the leaders of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – but not the fifth regional state, Turkmenistan – gave the matter another airing in the Kazak capital Astana.

Experts believe such a consortium could establish a system whereby Kazakstan and Uzbekistan, located downstream on the major rivers of Central Asia, would supply fuel to power stations in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. These latter countries would then have no need to use massive amounts of water over the winter to generate hydroelectric power, so their reservoirs would be kept full and the water released for irrigation in the summer months. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would reap the benefits of controlling the flow of water.

To date, however, no workable mechanism has been produced to regulate how water resources are shared in Central Asia. Some experts believe the consortium is a good idea in principle but impossible to implement in practice, since each participating country is likely to put its own national interests first.

Experts interviewed by NBCentralAsia in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan believe that the extent to which these two upstream countries benefit is the key to success in any regional water arrangement.

Georgy Petrov, a laboratory head at Tajikistan’s Institute for Water, Hydroelectric Power and the Environment, argues that there is no need for a new agreement at all – all the Central Asian countries need to do to solve their differences is to honour their obligations under Soviet-era arrangements providing for shared use of water resources, where the downstream states offset any losses incurred by Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for allowing the water to flow.

In recent years, these countries have stopped providing this compensation, and as a result the Kyrgyz are forced to let large volumes of water out of the Toktogul reservoir to generate electricity over the winter months. By contrast, Uzbekistan would rather see the water released in the summer so that it can irrigate its land.

Instead of compensation, one option being discussed in Kyrgyzstan is for its neighbours to pay for their excess water consumption – an idea opposed by Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. “We have sign international agreements defining the mechanisms by which neighbouring states would pay for water provided over and above a predetermined volume,” Kyrgyz parliamentary speaker Marat Sultanov told NBCentralAsia.

But the payment issue is a sensitive one, as Duishon Mamatkanov, director of the Institute of Water Issues in Kyrgyzstan, notes. “The moment there’s any talk of putting a price on water, neighbouring republics start exerting political and economic pressure on Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, by increasing the price of gas and closing their borders,” he said.

In early October, Uzbekistan announced that its neighbours would have to pay 100 US dollars per 1,000 cubic metres of gas from January 2007, instead of the 55 dollars per 1,000 cu m that they have paid up until now. The price hike will have serious economic implications for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which may now be forced to reduce imports of Uzbek gas.

(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)