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charging is applied, with fees based on estimations built on the area of land and crop cultivated
(DFID and Mott MacDonald 2003: 11 21; Hassan et al. 2003: 10).
But not only capacities, also a lack of transparency and accountability in water administra
tion in both states play a role. The farmers often do not know why they have to pay for some
thing they did not have to pay for before, which costs have to be covered, and how they bene
fit from it. This rather than the often claimed 'Soviet mentality' or religious values leads to
unwillingness to pay on part of the water users. It is often the result of a lack of transparancy
why and for what they have to pay, and in a lack of accountability of the water administration
towads the farmers; hence, a guarantee that payment leads to timely and sufficient water deli
very. Often, local water agencies still have difficulties with their new role of being accountable
not upwards but to the users. On the other side, water users are also not used to claiming their
rights. This is reinforced by inter institutional discrepancy between water policy (in this case
ISF) and water law: a codified water right does not exist in Tajikistan and was established in
Kyrgyzstan only in 2005.
These findings in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan correspond to other experiences. The theory
of water pricing widely failed in practice (Azevedo, Baltar 2005; Hellegers, Perry 2006; Mein
zen Dick et al. 1997: 13). Indeed, when accountability is not ensured, ISF reforms face resis
tance from two sides: from large and powerful water users who gain from the current situation
and therefore have no interest in any change, and from the small water users who are “unders
tandably reluctant to support a change which brings the certainty of higher cash payments
combined with less certain promises of better services and higher incomes” (Azevedo, Baltar
2005: 24). Azevedo and Baltar (2005: 26) conclude:
“It is now known that the international water community as a whole may have underestimated the chal-
lenges and the complexity of implementing such [water pricing] reforms especially under the vast variety of
physical, climatic, historic, legal, cultural, institutional, etc., conditions around the world”.
In a similar vein, Hellegers and Perry (2006: 83) state: “This socio political problem [of the
economic burden of water fees for farmers], plus the technical and administrative complexity
of measuring and accounting for water, make pricing an unsuitable approach to balancing
supply and demand.”
Hence, economic mechanisms are far from leading 'automatically' to more efficiency in
water usage. Under the current conditions in both countries, they do not present incentives to
economize water. They even can turn into the opposite: Less efficiency due to raising uncon
trolled water withdrawal and due to the decrease of funds at the state agencies for infrastruc
ture maintenance. When the institutionally and economically necessary conditions are not on in
place, water fees cannot be an adequate tool for more efficient water usage.
8.4
Restructuring Administration: from Administrative and Hierarchical to
Hydrographic and Inter-Sectoral Principles
During Soviet rule, water was managed in a hierarchical state command system without user
participation. Withdrawal quotas were decided on at the central level according to the interests
and needs of the USSR as a whole. Horizontal coordination of different sectors at the level of
the republican ministries was virtually absent. While at the regional level water was managed in
an integrated manner on basin principle, at the level of the individual republics, the organiza
tion of water administration followed administrative principles. After independence, these
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