In the Fergana Valley, agriculture is heavily dependent on diversion of water from the Syr-Darya river and its tributaries. Agriculture, the main water user accounting for more than 90 percent of the total water use, is under pressure to use water more judiciously. About 10 million people depend in one way or another on the irrigation infrastructure in the valley. This is why the sustainable management of the crucial water resources and trans-boundary water management is a key domain in the Swiss Regional Mid-Term Program 2002-2006 (cf. Swiss Water Strategy Central Asia 2002-2006).
Water use efficiency is extremely low since about 70 percent ot water diverted for irrigation is wasted due to technical and institutional losses. Inefficient institutional arrangements have resulted in inadequate water distribution, which exacerbates the potential for conflict, as welI as in excessive water use, significant water losses and consequently water logging and high drainage volumes. The IWRMP has shown that in many cases, irrigation methods applied at farm level are extremely wastetul, so that many fields suffer from excess irrigation.
With the privatisation of agriculture and the liberalization of agricultural markets, fully achieved in Kyrgyzstan, partly in Tajikistan and tentatively in Uzbekistan, there is an urgent need to reorganize water management along the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). In particular, management systems have to change from a top-down supply-oriented approach to a participatory and demand-driven approach, where hundreds or thousands of small farms will have to be provided with water in an adequate, transparent and equitable manner. To achieve this, the question of cost recovery and mechanisms for the sustainable financing of the operation and maintenance of irrigation systems of Central Asia has to be addressed.
The project has already shown that with improved water management, there is considerable potential to reach three interrelated objectives at the same time: to improve agricultural productivily and therefore farmers' incomes; to save water, decrease drainage ard salinisation; and to reduce water-related tensions and conflict.
