Comparing the Politics of Water Institutional Reform - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 190

the regulation of land or water (Giovarelli, Akmatova 2002: 14f). Still, the status of water in
Islam and Islamic law is an important aspect, which shaped and still shapes common attitudes
towards water usage. Religious arguments are sometimes used to oppose water fees. However,
as the fees are not for water as a resource, but to cover the costs of infrastructure and services
necessary for water delivery, they are not in conflict with Islamic principles. 300 It would be
necessary to inform farmers exactly about the purpose of the fees. Due to the discussion on
water fees, Islam is often perceived as an obstacle to rational water management. The potential
of Islam in water management is in contrast largely neglected. The Quran as well as the ha
dith 301 make explicit statements on the duty to use water economically, equitably, with consulta
tion of all stakeholders, and with respect to the environment (Faruqui 2001). However, reli
gious institutions in Central Asia are rarely involved in awareness campaigns in water
projects. 302 Certainly, their influence is restricted, but in rural areas imams are persons of au
thority and their potential positive role should not be wasted. In a community level project in
Pakistan, complaints about water shortage due to illegal pumps reduced by 26% after a local
group included the imam in its campaign (Shah et al. 2001). Despite the lesser importance of
religion, there is also the potential to use its influence for more rational water usage and aware
ness in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. A survey on reasons for water conservation in the Syr Darya
basin e.g. found out that financial incentives only count for 20% of the respondents, while
30% mentioned moral and religious motives (Abdullaev 2005: 7).
When acknowledging the complexity of the respective institutional setting of water re
forms, it is clear that global blueprint concepts as such of WUAs, volumetric ISF, or quasi
apolitical hydrographica management principles cannot work and cannot be transferred with
out modification. Rather, specific, case sensitive institutional designs of water institutions have
to be developed.
Avoiding a Dogmatic ISF Approach
Water fees often are considered a magic bullet in order to reduce wasteful water use, induce
rational and responsible usage, and reach cost recovery. On the other hand, there is a wide
international debate on the economic as well as social sense of such water fees, especially from
a poverty perspective, and on the general question of whether water is an economic good or a
human right. Beyond these normative (and sometimes ideological) considerations, worldwide
experience to date has shown that ISF reforms are hardly successfully implemented anywhere
(Azevedo, Baltar 2005: 28). Hence, regardless of how one might assess ISFs theoretically, in
practice they have proved to be an infeasible tool to reach the objectives of economic efficien
cy and cost recovery. Still they are proposed worldwide.
As we saw, ISFs are not implemented in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan due to technical rea
sons (no volumetric measurement facilities), economic reasons (poverty), incentive reasons (no
perceived benefits), and awareness reasons (no explanation). In addition, many farmers simply
lack the agricultural knowledge on how much water is needed for specific crops. Often this
results in as much irrigation as possible. In this case, training would there be a more appropri
ate measure than ISF.
Even if more awareness raising and training activities were conducted and farmers were
convinced of the need to pay ISF and those responsible for water allocation were to sanction
300 Even Saudi-Arabia and Iran, which base their laws on the sharia , introduced water tariffs (Faruqui 2001: 13).
301 Hadith are the written collections of the words and deeds of Prophet Mohammed.
302 One staff member of Mercy Corps in Tajikistan developed a project proposal on cooperation with and training of
imams for water awareness campaigns, which, however, was not realized (Mercy Corps n.d., author's interview with a
representative, Khudjand, 10/03/2005).