After 30 Years of Failure, Central Asian Countries Adopting More Productive Approach to Region’s Water Shortages, Regional Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 27 – For the first 30 years after acquiring independence, the Centra Asian countries failed to make much progress on adopting a common approach to water shortages, an approach that has made the situation there in that sector even worse, according to a study by five Central Asian and Russian experts.

            But now the situation seems to be improving, the result of just how serious the problems have become, the new approach of the Uzbekistan government, and increasing contacts among experts and officials in the five countries, they say. And they thus express some optimism that breakthroughs may be ahead.

            They make their case in “A New Stage in the Resolution of the Problems of Trans-Border Rivers of Central Asia,” (in Russian), Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Istoriya 87 (2024), pp. 114-120 at journals.tsu.ru/history/&journal_page=archive&id=2453) that has now been summarized at ia-centr.ru/experts/ia-centr-ru/evolyutsiya-podkhodov-k-regulirovaniyu-problemy-vodnoy-bezopasnosti-v-tsa/).

            The article is important not so much for its optimism which may prove to be misplaced given the propensity of the countries of the region to pursue their specific national agendas than for its recounting of the many false starts in talks over the last three decades, failures that have transformed a serious problem into a crisis.