Environmental Engineering Reference
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patterns. What kind of 'behavioral corridor' do these institutional constraints leave to actors,
and which incentives become effective under these conditions?
The agricultural variable has most sincere effect on the economic dimension of WIR,
meaning on the introduction of monetary mechanisms, ISF. We have seen that the reform is
not effectively implemented. First, many water users do not pay; second, many officials do not
enforce payment or sanction non payment. The way ISFs are implemented indeed rather pre
vents efficient water management: The expansion of barter trade through payment in kind
leads to increased transaction costs and unprofessional maintenance work.
Donor representatives and some officials tend to blame a so called 'Soviet mentality' for
the unwillingness to pay. 180 Others mention religious values: In Islam, water is considered a gift
of God. This contradicts its definition as a resource one must pay for. However, there is no fee
on water as a resource but only on the service of water delivery. Thus, this obstacle could be
overcome by way of sound information policies. The farmers often do not know what exactly
is going to happen, why they must pay for something they were not charged for before, which
costs must be covered, and how they benefit from it. The unwillingness to pay is therefore not
only connected to traditional values or a 'Soviet mentality' but also to a simple lack of informa
tion that results in non acceptance.
While these motivations explain the farmers' unwillingness to pay, I would argue that the
inability to pay is the main reason: widespread rural poverty due to the institutional conditions
of the agricultural sector. It is obvious that in a decapitalized environment as that of Kyrgyzs
tan's agricultural economy, the introduction of monetary mechanisms face difficulties. Many
farmers are too poor to pay fees due to the institutional constraints in the agrarian sector.
Apparently, already the symbolic price poses a problem for farmers, because they are almost
unable to earn a profit with agriculture. Very small land plots and the lack of an adequate do
mestic market to sell agricultural products, combined with no access to export markets, contri
bute to the farmers' poverty level. 181 Even a water expert at the Presidential Institute for Stra
tegic Studies admits that “at the moment it is nonsense to take money from them [the far
mers]”. He stresses that the concept of water fees should be understood as a perspective con
cept: “It is a perspective idea. To speak about tariffs now is certainly a dream.” 182 Also, water
bureaucrats at the meso level seem to have an understanding for the farmers' situation and
know that is impossible to demand fees from them, even though the former depend on this
180 This refers to awareness patterns that evolved during Soviet times, when water did not have to be paid for on a
quantitative basis. Together with a general ideology of nature being solely an object for human exploitation, this
resulted in the development of a very wasteful consumption attitude along with the expectation that water should be
availablefor free.
181 Another consequence of the constraints in the agrarian sector observed in Sokuluk is that many people do not work
on their fields but rather rent out their land and only use their garden plots for a small amount of subsistence
cultivation. The land is rented by other local farmers or by businesses. The latter combine many plots into huge and
lucrative fields. The other tenants are often migrants from the south, who came to the village only after land reform,
and therefore do not possess land. In Studencheskoe only a few people work on their fields themselves, while most
rent it to others. In the WUA “Shorgo”, where the land is situated quite far away from the homes of its owners, about
80% of them give it for rent. However, the WUA concept implies that only the ones that posses land can become
members of a WUA while short-term tenants make a contract with WUA (see chapter 2.3). Hence, many of the actual
farmers and water users cannot become members of the WUA, as they do not possess land. This results in the
paradoxical situation that the de facto water users are not members of WUA, while the WUA members cannot afford
to be water users. The system in this way actually excludes many water users instead of empowering them.
182 „ - . (…) , ,
“. Author's interview with a water expert at the MISI, Bishkek, 09/16/2003.
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