The opening remarks were given by the Water Initiatives Support programme Specialist of CAREC Mr Jusipbek Kazbekov and the representative of the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan, deputy of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis Mr Sadirjan Djakbarov.
Mr Kazbekov gave an overview of several CAREC projects on issues of water use.
One of the projects, “Raising Awareness and Partnership for Sustainable Water and Environment Development in Uzbekistan. Component 1” (UzWaterAware), funded by the European Union, is aimed at raising awareness of the general public on the importance of the efficient and productive use of water resources and environmental protection regarding climate change.
Another project of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) “Rethinking Water in Central Asia: The costs of inaction and benefits of water cooperation” was implemented by CAREC and adelphi. Its goal is to show the benefits of regional water cooperation, scenarios of problem-solving as well as the cost of inaction.
Also, the participants were presented with one more CAREC project “Smart Waters”, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). UWED representatives were invited to participate in the planned workshop on International Water Law within this project to improve and strengthen the intersectoral academic cooperation.
UNDP representative Mr Ulugbek Islamov gave a presentation on “Sustainable Management of Water Resources in rural areas in Uzbekistan: Technical Capacity Building. Component 2”.
Also, UWED Prof Alisher Fayzullaev presented the expert report on negotiation aspects of transboundary water issues. He has noticed that it is important to consider the history of issues and culture when preparing for the negotiations.
Then, the participants of the seminar got acquainted with such topics as an ecological aspect of solving water issues, the importance of the introduction of “environmental diplomacy”, development of water diplomacy and joint knowledge generation aimed at solving water issues.
The next day, students and masters had a simulation game on international negotiations on joint use of transboundary rivers.
As a result of the seminars, a collection of scientific articles on water and environmental diplomacy will be published.