Uzbekistan new indd

Country
Water Quotas 
With drawal in Amu Darya
Total Water With drawal
Kyrgyzstan
0.4 
0.054
10.1
Tajikistan
9.5 
9.4
11.5
Turkmenistan
22 
28.145
28
Uzbekistan
22
29.4
56
Sources: WB and Drainage Basin of the Aral Sea and other Transboundary Waters in Central Asia, UNECE

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Nariya Khasanova
130
UNESCAP regional water and energy strategies; the 
UNDP Integrated Water Management Framework, 
which stresses the need for regional management of 
water resources
10
; and the World Bank Central Asia 
Energy Water Development Program which consid-
ers a consumption-based approach, but stays with 
the idea of building multilateral water and energy co-
operation in Central Asia by establishing a multi-do-
nor trust fund.
Despite water being one of the main foci of in-
ternational donors, regional cooperation over this is-
sue has failed and is not likely to succeed in the near 
future because of historical and geostrategic factors 
and because of the nature of the political regimes. 
For most Central Asian policymakers regional in-
tegration efforts are linked to the Soviet experience 
and there is no interest in delegating any power to 
supranational bodies. For many Central Asian states 
state-building is linked to a process of distancing – if 
not competing with – from one’s neighbors. Lastly, 
relatively bad inter-personnel relations between pres-
idents play a huge role
11
. 
The lack of political will to engage in regional co-
operation makes Central Asian states very protective 
over their national water data. The official data pre-
sented by the Basin Water Organization “Amu Darya” 
(BVO), for instance, does not reflect the real amounts 
of water each riparian state is consuming.
12 
Only two 
countries in the region, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, 
have ratified the Water Convention. Uzbekistan is the 
only country from Central Asia that has acceded to 
the UN International Commission, legally obliging it 
to implement the principles of “reasonable and equi-
table use of water.”
13
Bilateral cooperation can sometimes be success-
ful. One of the successful examples of water cooper-
ation is a shared water agreement on the Chu and 
Talas rivers between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. 
The countries agreed to share operational and 
maintenance costs in proportion to received water 
amounts.
14
 However, successful bilateral coopera-
tion is often very specific. In that case, the good re-
lations between Bishkek and Astana explain largely 
the success, which Dushanbe and Tashkent cannot 
replicate.
The Threat of Water Scarcity and the Rogun 
Debate
Water has also become an object of securitization 
in Central Asia. Official narratives emphasize water 
scarcity and the risk of interstate conflicts. The wa-
ter scarcity debate in Central Asia started around the 
shrinking of the Aral Sea and became more intense 
in the 2000s.
The water scarcity argument is however a bogus 
argument. Indeed, compared to other regions of the 
world, water is not a scarce resource in Central Asia. 
According to the Water Stress Index a country is con-
sidered to be water scarce if its amount of renewable 
water per capita is less than 1,000 m
3
/year. All the 
Central Asian states are largely above this level. As a 
region, Central Asia is also sufficiently endowed with 
water (20,525 m
3
/year) compared to the Near East 
(7,922) or Northrn Africa (2,441).
Water has also become an object of securitiza-
tion in Central Asia. Official narratives emphasize 
water scarcity and the risk of interstate conflicts. The 
water scarcity debate in Central Asia started around 
the shrinking of the Aral Sea and became more in-
tense in the 2000s. 
The water scarcity argument is however a bogus 
argument. Indeed, compared to other regions of the 
world, water is not a scarce resource in Central Asia. 
According to the Water Stress Index a country is con-
sidered to be water scarce if its amount of renewable 
water per capita is less than 1,000 m
3
/year.
15
 All the 
Central Asian states are largely above this level. As a 
region, Central Asia is also sufficiently endowed with 
water (20,525 m
3
/year) compared to the Near East 
(7,922) or Northern Africa (2,441). 
The real problem in Central Asia has to do with 
water consumption and the totally disproportion-
ate waste of water. Even in the United States, which 
is known for its excessive water consumption, water 
withdrawal per capita is far below Central Asian levels, 
with the exception of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
16
10 S. Priesner, “Integrated Water Resources Management in Central Asia” (paper presented at the joint seminar, 2014), http://www.uz.undp.org/con-
tent/uzbekistan/en/home/presscenter/speeches/2014/04/18/-the-joint-seminar-integrated-water-resources-management-in-central-asia-/.
11 Laruelle and Peyrouse, “Regional Organisations in Central Asia.”
12 Wegerich, “Hydrohegemony in the Amudarya Basin.”
13 A. Khamzaeva, “Water Resource Management in Central Asia: security implications and prospects for regional cooperation,” Barcelona Centre for 
International Affairs (CIDOB) Asia, no. 25, 2009.
14 “Regional Water Intelligence report Central Asia.” 
15 J. Sehring and A. Diebold, “Water Scarcity Analyzed, 2014,” http://www.waterunites-ca.org/themes/19-infoboxes/32-water-scarcity-analyzed.html.
16 M. Laruelle, “Water in Central Asian Agriculture: No Time to Waste,” EUCAM Watch, no. 13, November 2012.

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