Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 86

6 Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan

The previous chapter described the framework conditions of water governance in Kyrgyzstan
and Tajikistan. How do these affect water institutional reforms, and which reforms are actually
decided and implemented? This chapter will portray in detail the water institutional reforms in
the Kyrgyz Republic.
For an understanding of the processes and interactions of WIR, it is necessary to first give
an overview of the administrative structure and key organizational actors in water governance
(chapter 6.1). It is equally important to obtain a general understanding of the general discourse
on water in the country and the predominating problem perception (chapter 6.2). After these
two more general sections, chapter 6.3 will elaborate on the political process of water institu
tional reforms: First, the formulation of general policy norms and direction in the National
Water Strategy (6.3.1) and the general legal framework (6.3.2) are covered. After that, the
reform programs to reach the objectives outlined in the policy papers are analyzed. These are
the administrative reorganization (6.3.3), the introduction of irrigation service fees (6.3.4) and
the transfer of local irrigation management (6.3.5). Each section will describe the processes and
actors of political decision making and those of implementation with the outcome so far.
Chapter 6.4 will then analyze in how far the neopatrimonial context factors have an influence
on and can explain the processes and outputs. The final part (6.5) will summarize the findings
of the Kyrgyz case study.

6.1

Administrative Structure and Key Actors of Water Governance

Who is formally entitled to decide and implement water policy? Who is actually involved in the
processes? In order to assess the role of different actors in water politics in Kyrgyzstan, this
chapter will give an overview of the organizations involved in water governance and their
competencies. It must be noted that the structure of water management has changed several
times since the country gained its independence, and it changed again shortly after the research
period. Partly, these structural reforms will be the object of research (chapter 6.3.3). The given
overview aims to include the most important former and actual agencies and competencies;
however, due to the constant flux, we can make no claim of full fledged compilation.

6.1.1

The Water Administration

The highest executive body responsible for the usage and regulation of the water resources in
the Kyrgyz Republic is the so called DepVodKhoz , the Department of Water Management ( De
partament Vodnogo Khozyajstva ) at the Ministry of Agricultural and Water Management and
Processing Industries ( Ministerstvo Selskogo i Vodnogo Khozajstva i Pererabatyvayushei Promyshlennosti )
(see Figure 9). The DepVodKhoz evolved from the former Ministry of Water Management,
MinVodKhoz , which was dissolved in 1996 (see chapter 6.3.3.2). It consists of three main sub