A meeting of the leaders of the founding countries of the International Fund to Save the Island was held in Astana, Kazakhstan. From 2027, the chairmanship of the International Fund to Save the Island will be transferred to Uzbekistan. The president gave information about the priorities of the presidency.
Photo: Presidential press service
On April 22, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took part in the meeting of the Council of Heads of the Founding States of the International Fund for Saving the Island in Astana, Kazakhstan, and gave a speech.
The head of state noted that this fund remains a unique regional structure established to solve the most important water-related, socio-economic and ecological issues in Central Asia in the early period of the countries’ independence.
“The fund made a great contribution to establishing qualitatively new interstate relations in the region, developing and strengthening regional cooperation. Thanks to the established system of mutual cooperation, the Foundation managed to ensure coordinated management of water resources of the Aral Sea basin. “The role and importance of the Fund is growing even more in the conditions of climate changes and increasing water consumption, which lead to an increase in water shortage in Central Asia,” said Mirziyoyev.
According to experts’ estimates, by 2040, the deficit of water resources in the Aral Sea basin may increase almost twice – up to 20 billion cubic meters per year. This creates additional risks for drinking water supply, ecology, agricultural sector, energy and social stability.
“At the same time, our countries occupy the lowest places in terms of the efficiency of using water resources. In order to create one dollar of added value in agriculture, our countries use almost three cubic meters of water, while this figure is twice less than the average in the world. The situation in the region requires us to jointly develop and implement well-thought-out and comprehensive solutions in the fields of water, energy and ecology,” said Mirziyoyev.
It is noted that from 2027, the chairmanship of the International Fund for Saving the Island will be transferred to Uzbekistan. The president gave information about the priorities of the presidency.
“First. Development and modernization of the fund. On the basis of the created foundation, it is necessary to continue to improve the structure and contractual and legal basis of the Fund, to ensure the clear distribution of powers of its bodies. We support proposals to expand the powers, status and responsibility of the fund’s bodies. I am confident that we will reach a reasonable compromise on all these issues.
Second. Harmonization of the Fund’s agenda with the decisions of the Central Asian leaders’ Consultative Meetings. Consultative meetings are shaping the main political directions of regional development. Therefore, it is important to ensure a close connection between the decisions of these summits and the activities of the Fund.
Third. Improving the efficiency of the fund’s programs and projects. Implementation of 34 regional projects is planned within the framework of the fourth program for the Aral Sea basin. Unfortunately, to date, a single approach to evaluating its effectiveness has not been developed. In this regard, we propose to include key performance indicators in the monitoring of program implementation. This will help to monitor positive developments, identify problematic aspects and attract additional funding and technical support from international partners.
The fourth. Leverage existing effective funding tools for the Foundation’s priority programs. For example, we propose to use the platform of the Multipartnership Trust Fund for Human Security for the UN Archipelago Region. He has a successful experience in gathering financial resources and using them effectively. We may consider expanding the Trust Fund’s mandate and geographic coverage to the entire Aral Sea basin together. This allows to direct targeted investments for the implementation of vital ecological and socio-economic projects in the territory of all countries.
The fifth. Establishing active cooperation between the Foundation and other regional structures. It is necessary for the International Fund to Save the Island to establish practical cooperation with effective regional platforms on water and energy issues, preservation of glaciers and mountain ecosystems, adaptation to climate change, and combating desertification. In particular, we offer the Foundation to implement targeted projects in cooperation with the Center for Combating Desertification at the Green University in Tashkent.
Sixth. Reviving the age-old tradition of our peoples to treat water carefully as a source of life. It is clear that no engineering solutions will have the desired effect if the society’s attitude towards water does not change. Through continuous education system – from pre-school level to professional training – we must strive to make the wise use of water a daily habit of everyone, our common cultural code. We propose to launch the regional program “Water of the Future”, which will mainly train farmers and industrialists in practical ways to use modern water-saving technologies.
I would like to emphasize this: we are ready to actively cooperate with international partners, financial institutions and expert-analytical structures to implement all these priorities,” said Mirziyoyev.
The President paid particular attention to the importance of strengthening constructive cooperation with Afghanistan, involving it in regional cooperation on climate, ecology, agriculture and water management issues.
“Today, it is urgent to attract financial resources from international donors to strengthen the shores and carry out land reclamation works in Afghanistan. In the future, it is necessary to form a regional contractual and legal framework for the distribution of water resources, taking into account the rights and obligations of all countries in the Aral Basin, including Afghanistan,” said Mirziyoyev.
The President proposed to declare 2026-2036 as the “Decade of practical actions on the rational use of water in Central Asia”. He also invited everyone to the World Water Conservation Forum to be held in Samarkand at the end of September this year.
