Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon urged Central Asian countries to share their water resources and to provide protection and appropriate management, the UN press service reported.

Ban Ki Moon made the call in his welcome address to the participants of a high level international conference on water cooperation which was held in Dushanbe on August 20-21 and organized by the Tajik government jointly with UN within the international water cooperation year.

The UN Secretary-General reminded the importance of natural resources for the nations' welfare, economic development and maintaining a healthy environment. He noted that population growth, the growth of consumption and production leads to water shortages in the world and its pollution.

To date, around 800 million people do not have access to appropriate water supply systems. Around 2.5 million are deprived of adequate sanitation. Approximately five children under five years die due to a lack of secure drinking water, unfavorable sanitation conditions and basic hygiene.

On the initiative of Tajikistan, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution declaring 2013 the year of international water cooperation.

Ban Ki Moon went on to say that regardless of location in the upper or lower course of rivers, the countries should share their water resources, provide protection and reliable management for the sake of current and future generations.

The UN Secretary-General's message was read out by his Deputy on Economic and Social Affairs, Wu Hongbo at a press conference in Dushanbe.

Water problem in Central Asia is one of the topical issues, which has not found an effective solution for many years. However, leaders of the regional countries are seeking an effective solution to this problem.

Earlier Kyrgyz Prime Minister Jantoro Satybaldiyev said in a meeting with his Tajik counterpart Akil Akilov that Kyrgyzstan attaches great importance to regional cooperation in hydropower sphere and supports rational and effective use of hydropower resources of Central Asia.

Furthermore, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon offered UN to consider possibility of declaring new international decade for solving water problems.

According to the UN Development Program, the unresolved problems with exploitation of water resources in Central Asia annually create losses worth $1.7 billion due to mismanagement of water resources.

Russian expert on Central Asia Leonid Gusev believes that problem with water use in Central Asia will be exacerbated due to high population growth rates in the long term prospect.

"The main problem is that the interests of the countries using water resources do not coincide. Some countries want to use the water in the irrigation mode, others for power. As a result, a conflict situation occurs," he said.

Each of the Central Asian countries seeks to solve the water problem unilaterally and by using this method sees it as the only advantageous way ahead, the expert believes.

According to him, water problems in Central Asia can be solved in several ways, including the creation of a compensation mechanism for cooperation in the field of using water and energy resources in the region.

"It is possible to create a compensation mechanism cooperatively when using water and energy resources in the region," Gusev said. "This can be a more profitable scenario than the policy of ensuring energy and water self-sufficiency of each country."