Activities in Tajikistan

Tajikistani population is about 70 percent rural, with less than half living in regions having adequate waterworks (source: the Tajikistani National Development Strategy (NDS), 2007). Part of the reason for this is that the economic breakdown and civil war that followed independence badly damaged existing facilities, leaving 30 percent in malfunctioning condition. As a result, many rural inhabitants use unsanitary river and irrigation water for drinking, leading to outbreaks of infectious disease.

Considering these conditions, the government of Tajikistan made environmental sustainability as one of the seven key areas in 2007 to 2015 NDS, which includes making safe drinking water available in urban and rural areas. Focus areas of the project for Sustainable Rural Drinking Water Supply in Southern Khatlon Province include raising water availability from the 2003 rate of 47 percent to 64 percent in 2010, and 74 percent in 2015 (source: NDS, 2007).

Khatlon Province had a population of 2.5 million (source: Statistics Bureau) in 2007 and was badly affected by the civil war. Statistics in 1995 indicate that no more than 10 percent of the population had access to safe drinking water, with several hundred thousand relying on irrigation water during the summer and water wagons during the winter for everyday water needs. Simply from a human safety standpoint, a new water supply system is urgently required. As the population of the eight districts in southern Khatlon (out of a total of 24) was about 800 thousand according to a February 2007 preliminary survey group, no less than 80 thousand people in the southern portion of the province are in dire need of a safe water supply.

The objective of this project is to establish a safe and sustainable drinking water supply system involving the government and community. This will include drafting a repair plan for existing facilities along with an operation and maintenance plan. The project is expected to produce the following results:

1. An inventory of village water supply facilities will be taken and problem areas will be identified,
2. A water supply facilities recovery plan will be established for the eight specified southern districts,
3. The roles and responsibilities relating to village water supply will be proposed to take by the Ministry of Water Resources Management, public service corporations involved in rural water supply construction, regional municipalities, villages and communities; the awareness of costs and water conservation consciousness will rise in communities; and a working community-maintained model will be demonstrated, and
4. A study will be conducted to assist public corporations in developing water supply repair plans and maintenance plans.

JICA sent two short-term water resource development and public health specialists to survey southern Khatlon in November 2003, and they confirmed that the facilities for drinking water were in dire need of repairing. This was followed in 2004 by a request from Tajikistan for a master plan survey to build a model system providing safe and sustainable drinking water involving the community participation in the eight southern Khatlon districts. A preliminary survey group was dispatched in January 2007.

The Ministry of Water Resources Management acted as the executing agency, while a public service corporation involved in rural waterworks and the government of Khatlon Province served as members of the steering committee. The survey period is from August 2007 to March 2009, which subject area was eight districts in southern Khatlon (out of a total of 24).