Making water flow uphill
Despite Kyrgyzstan’s abundant rivers, most people had no access to clean water. Marta Mills and Esen Turusbekov explain how DFID and the World Bank helped overcome the problem.
Mention chronic water shortages or poor access to clean water to almost anyone, and they’ll probably think you’re talking about Africa. Kyrgyzstan would not be the name that springs to mind. Even those
familiar with this small Central Asian country might be puzzled. High mountains cover 94% of the country, which has abundant rivers, glaciers and lakes. In fact Kyrgyzstan (sometimes known as the Switzerland of Central Asia) boasts Issy-Kul, the second largest mountain lake in the world. But this does not tell the whole story. Only 19% of the rural population have access to clean drinking water, according to national statistics. And since 65% of the five million-strong population live in rural areas, this is a major issue.
Andrew Grant, an amateur alpinist from London, was blithely unaware of all this when he visited but he had heard a lot about the amazing Tian Shan mountains. He was keen to go there, not least because Kyrgyzstan is a mystery to most Europeans – few of whom could point to it on a map – and he rightly assumed it would be unspoilt by tourism.
In 2006, after a long fl ight and a five-hour drive through the mountains from Bishkek, Grant made it to Kytai, an alpine village in the Issyk-Kul province in northern Kyrgyzstan. The scenery was breathtaking – Kytai is a remote idyll with a population of just 556, surrounded by high peaks. Sheep, goats, cows and horses grazed on the green meadows nearby. He found a room at a family-run guesthouse – apart from the occasional yurt, the only tourist accommodation available in rural Kyrgyzstan.
Parched from his journey, he asked his host, Guljan, innocently, “Can I have some water please?” She smiled. “Sure. In a couple of hours – I need to go to the mountains and fetch it.”
Grant was nonplussed, as many other foreign visitors before and since. Fetch water? In a country so rich in water resources? It made no sense. But he discovered that several times a day Guljan or her children had to walk several miles into the mountains to get water from a river. This proved particularly difficult in the winter, when temperatures drop as low as -30ºC.
Two years later when Grant returned to Kytai, this time equipped with a plentiful supply of bottled water, he found to his astonishment, brand new standpipes on almost every crossing in the village.
It turned out that soon after his departure Zeinep Dyikanbaeva, Guljan’s neighbour, learned about the Taza- Suu (Clean Water) programme that had just launched in the neighbouring village of Irdyk. The i
nitiative, implemented jointly by the World Bank and DFID, aims to improve water supply, hygiene and sanitation facilities in the Kyrgyz villages.
In each village programme staff gather the local people, explain the benefits, how it works and the role the rural community has to play. The key factors are simple: villagers need to be willing to participate in the programme and prepared to ‘own’ the future water supply system – the standpipe, pipes, and reservoir or borehole (depending on the type of system). This works best, when a trusted person in the community is enthusiastic enough to encourage others to participate. In Kytai, this was Zeinep Dyikanbaeva.
Zeinep is a cheerful, 58-year-old mother of six. She has spent all her life in Kytai, farming with her husband. Looking after her big family has made her a natural ‘manager’ She is “good with people” say other villagers. They add, “She also always finishes things she initiates, and tries to find solutions to problems.” The lack of clean drinking water had been the biggest problem in Kytai for years, so when she heard about Taza-Suu and saw the improvements in the neighbouring village, she knew this was the chance her community had been waiting for.
There was one main obstacle – money. She had to persuade the villagers to pay a monthly tariff ($0.3-0.5 per family member). “Money is important to keep the water running,” Zeinep says frankly. But it took many people a long time to understand that they need to pay for good and reliable access to water. Many of her neighbours said water was a gift from God so it ought to be free. Another argument was that as they never had to pay during the Soviet era, why should they now? Zeinep patiently explained that the money was to pay for filtering the water and bringing it to their streets – not for water itself.
Zeinep’s respect in the community, her negotiating skills and the recognition of the problem itself meant
that her efforts eventually met with 100% success. It hasn’t been so straightforward in other villages, but gradually, project staff managed to bring everyone on board and in 2007 reached 100% tariff collection.
Now what has happened in Kytai and neighbouring villages is being duplicated across Kyrgyzstan. The project has helped empower communities to identify, plan, operate and maintain the whole water supply system in their villages, in close collaboration with local government. Community participation has enhanced commitment and ownership. Villagers have organised themselves into Community Drinking Water User Unions, consisting of several standpipe committees responsible for maintenance, repairs and collection of fees (Zeinep is the Chair of hers). Thousands of such committees have been established, to bring sustainable access to safe water.
A total of 169 sub-projects providing water to 334,410 people in 204 villages will be be completed this year. A parallel project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, is being set up in the four remaining regions of the country. By December 2008 the two projects will improve access to safe drinking water to over a million people, one-third of the rural population, and one-fifth of the country’s entire population.
A simple request for a glass of water in remote Kyrgyzstan will no longer be the challenge it used to be.
Mention chronic water shortages or poor access to clean water to almost anyone, and they’ll probably think you’re talking about Africa. Kyrgyzstan would not be the name that springs to mind. Even those
Andrew Grant, an amateur alpinist from London, was blithely unaware of all this when he visited but he had heard a lot about the amazing Tian Shan mountains. He was keen to go there, not least because Kyrgyzstan is a mystery to most Europeans – few of whom could point to it on a map – and he rightly assumed it would be unspoilt by tourism.
In 2006, after a long fl ight and a five-hour drive through the mountains from Bishkek, Grant made it to Kytai, an alpine village in the Issyk-Kul province in northern Kyrgyzstan. The scenery was breathtaking – Kytai is a remote idyll with a population of just 556, surrounded by high peaks. Sheep, goats, cows and horses grazed on the green meadows nearby. He found a room at a family-run guesthouse – apart from the occasional yurt, the only tourist accommodation available in rural Kyrgyzstan.
Parched from his journey, he asked his host, Guljan, innocently, “Can I have some water please?” She smiled. “Sure. In a couple of hours – I need to go to the mountains and fetch it.”
Grant was nonplussed, as many other foreign visitors before and since. Fetch water? In a country so rich in water resources? It made no sense. But he discovered that several times a day Guljan or her children had to walk several miles into the mountains to get water from a river. This proved particularly difficult in the winter, when temperatures drop as low as -30ºC.
Two years later when Grant returned to Kytai, this time equipped with a plentiful supply of bottled water, he found to his astonishment, brand new standpipes on almost every crossing in the village.
It turned out that soon after his departure Zeinep Dyikanbaeva, Guljan’s neighbour, learned about the Taza- Suu (Clean Water) programme that had just launched in the neighbouring village of Irdyk. The i
In each village programme staff gather the local people, explain the benefits, how it works and the role the rural community has to play. The key factors are simple: villagers need to be willing to participate in the programme and prepared to ‘own’ the future water supply system – the standpipe, pipes, and reservoir or borehole (depending on the type of system). This works best, when a trusted person in the community is enthusiastic enough to encourage others to participate. In Kytai, this was Zeinep Dyikanbaeva.
Zeinep is a cheerful, 58-year-old mother of six. She has spent all her life in Kytai, farming with her husband. Looking after her big family has made her a natural ‘manager’ She is “good with people” say other villagers. They add, “She also always finishes things she initiates, and tries to find solutions to problems.” The lack of clean drinking water had been the biggest problem in Kytai for years, so when she heard about Taza-Suu and saw the improvements in the neighbouring village, she knew this was the chance her community had been waiting for.
There was one main obstacle – money. She had to persuade the villagers to pay a monthly tariff ($0.3-0.5 per family member). “Money is important to keep the water running,” Zeinep says frankly. But it took many people a long time to understand that they need to pay for good and reliable access to water. Many of her neighbours said water was a gift from God so it ought to be free. Another argument was that as they never had to pay during the Soviet era, why should they now? Zeinep patiently explained that the money was to pay for filtering the water and bringing it to their streets – not for water itself.
Zeinep’s respect in the community, her negotiating skills and the recognition of the problem itself meant
Now what has happened in Kytai and neighbouring villages is being duplicated across Kyrgyzstan. The project has helped empower communities to identify, plan, operate and maintain the whole water supply system in their villages, in close collaboration with local government. Community participation has enhanced commitment and ownership. Villagers have organised themselves into Community Drinking Water User Unions, consisting of several standpipe committees responsible for maintenance, repairs and collection of fees (Zeinep is the Chair of hers). Thousands of such committees have been established, to bring sustainable access to safe water.
A total of 169 sub-projects providing water to 334,410 people in 204 villages will be be completed this year. A parallel project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, is being set up in the four remaining regions of the country. By December 2008 the two projects will improve access to safe drinking water to over a million people, one-third of the rural population, and one-fifth of the country’s entire population.
A simple request for a glass of water in remote Kyrgyzstan will no longer be the challenge it used to be.