water and environmental management training ACTIVITIES
Interstate Commission for Water Coordination Training Centre for Water Resources Management
Global Water Partnership Central Asia and Caucasus
August 2005
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Freshwater in Central Asia is a shared and a scarce resource. Its management involves multifaceted interactions among various stakeholders at all levels of water management hierarchy. Growing demand for water and a need to achieve and secure a balance between regional and national interests. Society and nature require a shared vision for sustainable water resources management and development in Central Asia. One of the best ways to do this is through developing and executing a set of measures aimed at strengthening the capacities of regional water management and environment institutions in fulfilling their mandates for cooperative management of water resources in the region and involvement of stakeholders in Integrated Water Resources Management. In this context, developing human and institutional capacity is required for increased participation and improved communication among all organizations and agencies at all levels. In order to enable this, a special training institution must be in place that develops and delivers training courses that are tailored to the needs of Central Asian Countries.
In the mid-1990s The Central Asian Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC) put forward the idea of creating a regional training centre. Donor agencies (CIDA, USAID, SDC and others) have supported this initiative which has led to the establishment of the Regional Training Centre for Water Resources Management in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in September 2000, with a training program set for five-year period. Since its creation, the Training Centre in cooperation with a number of regional and international organizations has developed water and environmental management training courses. With over 1100 participants to date, the Training Centre has promoted a number of new programs in the context of regional cooperation over sharing and managing transboundary water resources and enabling environment for development and implementation of practical transboundary water management instruments. The ICWC Training Centre Branches in Urgench, Uzbekistan, and Osh and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, have been established to meet specific needs in training of the water stakeholders in tackling the problems specific to downstream and upstream environs. The effects from these initiatives have brought positive additions to the overall process of cooperative management of transboundary water resources in the region. These are demonstrated in even closer interactions and good faith negotiations among professionals from different countries. Furthermore, the ICWC TC has always given consideration to gender issues as one of its priorities. Women participation both in development training activities and delivering of training courses is provided.
Nevertheless, implementation of capacity building programs is still being constrained by limited financial resources available for such types of activities within the regional water management organizations. Given the fact that the current funding support from our main donor CIDA will come to its end at the end of 2005, it is essential to secure the non-stop activities of the regional training center and its branches. This has been a subject of discussions in a number of recent ICWC regular meetings (some jointly with GWP CACENA), whose Resolutions include provisions on the subject under consideration.
The activity will incorporate a combination of seminars, roundtables, courses and train-the-trainer programs, aimed to increase the capacity of water resources and environment management based on a participatory approach. While working to expand and strengthen a sustainable training network in the region, the activity will also place an emphasis on dissemination of training materials which will be permanently fed by the scope of research and pilot implementation projects and will accumulate experience throughout Central Asia to create a truly regional project. The training programs developed under the project will adopt multisciplinary approaches and themes to respond to the growing water security issues in the region through promotion of advanced water management concepts such as good water governance, integrated management, environmental sustainability, and adherance to principles of international water law. Overall, the project will assist the riparian civil soceity in the region in the transition to a sustainable water and environmental management.
2. ACTIVITIES OBJECTIVES
The main objectives of this Activity are the following:
- Supporting and strengthening the existing regional training centres in Tashkent and Urgench, (Uzbekistan), and in Osh, Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) through maintaining roundtables for decision makers, water and environmental specialists.
- Expansion of the training network through establishing an additional training network branch in Kyzyl-Orda, (Kazakhstan) to meet the training needs of the stakeholders in downstream areas of the Syrdarya River Basin;
- Expansion of the training network through establishing an additional training branch in Dushanbe, (Tajikistan) to meet the training needs of stakeholders in the middle reaches of Amudarya River Basin and Northern Afghanistan;
- Conducting promotion of advanced water and environment management concepts through development and delivery of tailor-made training courses and programs on legal, institutional, governance, conflict resolution, peace building and other related aspects of water and environmental management;
- Leading activity for water conservation/saving and implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management trough pilot and demonstration plots and a set of systematic workshops along this lines;
- Promoting the principles of international water and environmental law that reflected in multilateral water and environmental conventions and facilitating in adherence of the Central Asian Countries to these conventions through increased public awareness-raising;
- Developing e-learning network and self education electronic manuals in local (Central Asian) languages including Afghani for training of water and environment specialists and other relevant stakeholders;
- Providing linkages between various advanced technologies projects being implemented in the region through the training network development and promoting advanced water and environmental management concepts among members and beneficiaries of the network;
- Development of the knowledge based society;
- Promotion of scientific mobility with regard to intellectual resources (West –East and vs. versa);
- To connect activity of the ICWC Training Centre with the information program CAREWIB (SIC ICWC and SDC; www.cawater-info.net) for more broad dissemination of knowledge accumulated during the project realization.
3. RESULTS ACHIEVED
The ICWC Training Centre network in cooperation with GWP CACENA has become a focal point for water resources management in the region and is helping to create framework for identification and implementation of water reform and related agricultural reforms in the region. Overall, project performance has a significant progress in the areas of policy and institutional reforms.
Influence on the decision – makers and Water Management Organizations
- Water Law in Kyrgyzstan (2004)
- IWRM accepted as principal framework in Water Law of Kazakhstan (2003)
- Principal strategy of Water development in Tajikistan (2003)
- Degree of President of Uzbekistan “About restructuring water management system to hydrographic principle”
Creation of neutral apolitical forum where “round table” discussions can take place to build consensus on key issues such as:
- Application of existing interstate and intersectoral agreements
- Negotiation of new agreements at national and regional levels
- Balance between needs of different economic sectors
- Set up of water user association – structure and function
- Introduction of principle of payment for water.
IWRM Ferghana, IWRM lowlands, Strategic Planning, IWRM Aral Sea coast, Drainage in Central Asia, Water and Education, Rivertwin. / McGill UN, UNESCO-IHE, BONN UN, STUTTGART UN, MONPELLYE UN, Mount Royal College, IWMI, Dundee UN. / INBO, ICID-CIID, WWC, IWRA, GWP, SDC, WB, ADB
The Training Centre Network has successfully:
- Enhanced regional cooperation
- Promoted increased dialogue and cooperation between senior policy workers
- Draft policy protocols produced from workshops contributed to increase trust
- Sharing of information and experience on water issues and laws
- Improved coordination on water allocation and distribution in Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers (especially between upstream and downstream states.
Unique interstate and regional nature of ICWC TC noted by many senior policy makers and donors during fields interviews carried out by independent experts.
3. DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Training courses and programs developed and delivered under this proposed project will address a range of contemporary issues and challenges the Central Asian Countries are facing today. First of all, the project will utilize newer approaches to build, modify, or create functional relationships among professionals and institutions for decision-making, technical and operational excellences. These remain necessary for enabling professional competences, effective and functioning institutions and for elaborating sustainable water management decisions. Secondly, it is expected that the effective institutions will ultimately work for and deserve increased public trust and support thus ensuring appropriate funding for these institutions to realize their mandates and broader participation of public in pertinent decision-making processes in water and environmental matters. Thirdly, training seminars and workshops will adopt various interactive learning methods, round-table discussions and forums among professionals to impact the water resources and environmental management, decision-making process and to improve transboundary hydro-diplomacy for consensus building and conflict prevention. It is supposed that the effects of these processes will increase the involvement of various stakeholders and enable cross-sector and transboundary public support.
The project will put a strong emphasis on regional cooperation with active promotion of development and adoption of mutually beneficial national and regional water and environment policies. A combination of these policies will allow for the development of comprehensive and working agreements on transboundary water management and environmental protection in Central Asia. The project will promote good water governance, principles of international environmental and transboundary watercourses use laws and provide linkages between regional water and other related issues and efforts with global goals guiding water management and environmental protection. On the whole, it is expected that the process should help the Central Asian Countries in their transition to a sustainable water and environmental management and improve their capabilities for channelling more efforts to fulfill their commitments towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Water and related problems of Central Asia serves as root cause for the major existing setbacks and are explicitly linked with such vital issues to be addressed as poverty and environmental degradation. Human and institutional capacities on which the project proposal is focused are integral and important elements of the overall framework to address these issues.
Experience accumulated during the project execution beginning from 2000 and implementation of innovative approaches on the base of International skills, the ICWC TC will contribute to enrichment of educational and scientific knowledge base.
3.1. Improvement of existing training courses and programs
3.1.1. Integrated Water Resources Management Training Course – The existing IWRM training course has high relevance, but need further development in its objectives, structure and IWRM relation for the training needs of current and future water managers. The objective of this plan will be to improve the existing training materials related to IWRM, to be shared, replicated and adapted by regional training networks. The expected result is improved availability of quality training materials in IWRM, well structured for training purposes, complete in terms of contents and IWRM principles and designed in a way which facilitates its use by training institutions region-wide. The upgraded course will include natural, economic, social and legal aspects of IWRM implementation such as:
ecological aspects of IWRM: factors towards/against;
management tools in IWRM: hydrological and socio-economic modeling and forecasting, financial instruments;
resource governance in IWRM;
enabling environment and stakeholders;
international water law: conventions and laws towards/against IWRM;
water related conflict resolution methods and skills for dispute mitigation;
Improved materials will be posted on ICWC Training Center’s website. Successful completion of this plan will increase the opportunity to share materials between networks. It is recognized that there are other important aspects to delivery of training and education activities but availability of training materials is one of the fundamental components. New arrangement of the would-be of IWRM training will be directed at providing practical assisstance to grass-root water and land users participating in implementation of IWRM on the territory of the five Central Asian States, including such pilot projects as: “IWRM in Ferghana Valley”, “IWRM in Lowlands” and all newly created river-basin organizations in Central Asia.
3.1.2. International and National Water Law and Policy Training Course – GWP CACENA, ICWC Training Centre in cooperation with the International Water Law Research Institute (IWLRI) of the University of Dundee, UK, has developed and delivered a series of training workshops on the subject. The materials require further development to reflect specific nature of legal and institutional issues relevant to Central Asian transboundary water resources management and development. More emphasis needs to be paid on treaty-based regional practice with full reference to applicability and relevance of fundamental principles of international water law (e.g., equitable and reasonable utilization and participation and no-harm principles) for the current state of water affairs in the region. Improved course on the subject will broaden its content to include national water laws and policies of Central Asian countries.
3.1.3. Transboundary Waters: Strategies to Improve Regional Cooperation Training Course – This course provides and emphasis specific nature of transboundary water and related energy cooperation and conflict resolution in the Syrdarya and Amudarya River basins. It highlights the need for cooperative decision-making in water management of the downstream riparians and in hydropower policies of the upstream riparians. In the upstream versus downstream dialogue the environmental demands for and considerations of transboundary watercourse ecosystems needs must not be overlooked. In respect of these considerations there is a need in strategic planning for IWRM for further period taking into account forecasted changes in nature and economies of CA countries. In this context, the training course requires additional materials to cover environmental considerations with increased involvement of non-governmental organizations and representatives of State agencies/departments for environmental protection and other authorities dealing with water. New route would be connected with preparation of new agreements between states, directed at the strengthening of collaboration between states and development of national water laws. The SIC ICWC has developed a set of tools to be utilized for the purpose om improving water management with respect to clarifying interstate regional water policies in the form of modeling computer scenarios (models of “Regional Socio-economic development under various Scenarios”, “the Vision of the Aral Sea basin”, “Climate Change effects” etc)