Swiss support for the "National Hydrometeorology Services" (NHMS) of Central Asia goes back to 1995, when SECO decided to participate with the financing and implementation of a part of the large World Bank led "Aral Sea Basin Program‘ aiming at improvement ot NHMS capacities. Since then, SECO and SDC have financed a series of tour projects in the five countries of the region. Within a total of ten years, projects with a volume of some 8.5 Mio CHF were carried out mainly aiming at establishing a number of stations, improving data collection, processing, dissemination and flow forecasting in selected basins, as well as training and capacity building. These projects were all implemented by the Federal 0ffice of Water and Geology (FOWG) under mandates of both SECO and SDC. The whole of the Swiss support was evaluated in 2003, with a focus on the present SDC project ‘Regional Centre for Hydrology‘ (RCH), operational since 2001. The review concluded that while the projects were technically adequate, they had failed to reach important declared objectives. Nevertheless, the review recommended continuing assistance under the condition of a substantial reorientation under a new project management and mandate towards:
• lmproved institutional and tinancial sustainability;
• lmproved interaction and cooperation between the NHMS and the end users of the hydra-meteorological data and forecasts.
