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Revisiting Water Issues in Central Asia: Shifting from Regional Approach to National Solutions
131
Table 2. Total Renewable Water Resources in Selected 
Countries (M3/Capita/Year)
United Arab Emirates
18.5
Saudi Arabia
83.61
Singapore
114.2
Jordan
145.1
Israel
231.3
Uzbekistan
1,741
Afghanistan
1,956
Tajikistan
3,095
Kyrgyzstan
4,336
Turkmenistan
4,791
Kazakhstan
6,562
Source: http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/data/query/index.htm-
l?lang=en
Table 3. Total Water Withdrawal per Capita in 
Central Asia (M3)
Afghanistan
823
Kazakhstan
1,291
Kyrgyzstan
1,558
Tajikistan
1,740
Turkmenistan
5,752
Uzbekistan
2,113
Source: http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/data/query/index.htm-
l?lang=en
The debate around the Rogun dam is the most 
illustrative example of how water and energy are be-
ing securitized in Central Asia both by the two con-
cerned states, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and by the 
international community. 
The Rogun dam is a hydropower station to be 
constructed on the Vakhsh River in Tajikistan, a trib-
utary to Amu Darya. The construction of the station 
began in late Soviet times but was not completed. In 
1993 severe floods destroyed a significant part of the 
infrastructure and the dam’s initial basement. The 
devastating civil war in Tajikistan further contribut-
ed to the deterioration of the construction. The Tajik 
government decided to revitalize the Rogun dam 
construction in 2004.
However, in 2007 the Russian company Rusal 
abandoned the project following a disagreement with 
the Tajik government over the dam height (285 or 
335 meters), and because Rusal wanted to acquire the 
TALCO aluminum factory as well, which Dushanbe 
didn’t want to sell. 
The estimated total cost of the project is between 
$3 and $5 billion,
17
 an amount that the country can-
not secure. In 2010 the Tajik government launched 
an Initial Public Offering (IPO) for a total amount 
of six billion somoni (about $1.37 billion), but it was 
able to raise only 20% of the required amount, mostly 
by forcing its population to buy shares. 
In response to a request by the government of 
Tajikistan, the World Bank prepared two feasibility 
studies (A Techno-Economic Assessment Study and 
An Environmental and Social Impact Assessment). 
Both studies, released in 2014, concluded that sub-
ject to design changes and mitigation measures, a 
hydropower project could be built and operated at 
the Rogun site within international safety norms. 
Another key concluding statement was “The project 
is very large (on the order of 50 percent of 2013 GDP) 
and would present correspondingly large financing 
and macroeconomic risks.”
18
 Meanwhile, there are 
no countries, or international institutions, including 
World Bank, who made or would be willing to make 
financial commitments to support this project. 
The Uzbek and the Tajik positions with regard 
to the Rogun dam project are at opposite ends. 
Uzbekistan fears that Tajik upstream diverting of 
water on the Vakhsh River will put its water needs 
for agriculture in the summer months in danger. 
Tashkent has argued that once constructed the reser-
voir’s filling (lasting between 10 and 17 years depend-
ing on sources and calculations) will impact potable 
water supplies and damage irrigation and crop yields. 
It has also pointed to seismic risks and the dangers 
involved if a dam of such height is built in a region 
sensitive to earthquakes. 
Tajikistan on the other hand argues that Rogun 
is needed to solve its energy shortages that drasti-
cally hamper its economic development (estimated 
at about 2,700 gigawatt hours
19
). The country has 
17 “Assessment Studies for Proposed Rogun Hydropower Project in Tajikistan,” Brief, World Bank, 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/
brief/rogun-assessment-studies.
18 “Key Issues for Consideration on the Proposed Rogun Hydropower Project,” Draft for Discussion, World Bank, 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/
content/dam/Worldbank/Event/ECA/central-asia/WB%20Rogun%20Key%20Issues.pdf.
19 “Study shows TALCO’s potential to save energy, 2013,” World Bank, 2013, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/01/28/study-shows-tal-
co-potential-save-energy.

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Nariya Khasanova
132
huge undeveloped hydropower potential (produc-
tion of 527 milliard kWh electricity with total ca-
pacity of 4070 megawatts
20
) and hopes to strength-
en its national budget by exporting hydroelectricity 
to its southern neighbors in South Asia. Dushanbe 
believes that seismic security can be ensured. It also 
argues that the Amu Darya flows won’t be reduced, 
neither during the reservoir’s filling time or after, and 
that agreed quotas will be respected.
21
Tensions over the Rogun project led to uncom-
promised positions from both sides, with President 
Islam Karimov mentioning armed conflict and 
President Emomali Rakhmon making Rogun a pan-
acea for current energy outages in Tajikistan. 
Solutions other than Rogun were disregarded. 
At the third riparian meeting on February 12, 2013 
in Almaty, the World Bank proposed to Tajikistan 
that they construct several small hydropower sta-
tions with different heights and different capac-
ities
22
, but it was refused by Dushanbe. The Tajik 
government has also tended to ignore the main 
reason for the country’s energy shortages, namely 
the fact that the Tajik aluminum factory, TALCO, 
consumes about 40%
23
 of the total net electricity 
consumption and is not paying its dues to the state 
electric company Barki Tojik. On the Uzbek side, 
vocal concerns about water scarcity divert atten-
tion from extremely high water consumption, al-
most twice that of Spain, with the latter having 17 
million more people (30 million versus 47 million 
inhabitants), and being one of the main agricultur-
al producers in Europe
24
. 
The international community’s equivocal state-
ments about Rogun and the repetitive wishful think-
ing about regional cooperation do not help Tashkent 
and Dushanbe deconstruct their narratives of danger 
over water and energy issues.