Client: Center for implementation of foreign investment projects in water sector under Ministry of water resources of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Start date: 02/2022
Completion date: 02/2024
Uzbekistan Tashkent
World Bank
26 month
The project aims to support important agricultural and water reforms: using land and water more efficiently, improving land and labor productivity, and ensuring environmental and social sustainability. Ultimately, farmers and farm workers will benefit from higher returns per unit of land and water, improved productivity of labour and greater employment opportunities. The main objectives of the consulting services are to strengthen institutions and knowledge capacity of the relevant stakeholders in the Project area. Project support has been designed not as a limited and structured adjunct to civil works, but as a separately financed Component of FVWRMP-II, working with local authorities to implement a flexible program that is seen to be relevant to farmers and water service providers.
The Consultant will recruit a team of Subject Matter Specialist (SMS) led by an Irrigation/Agricultural Engineer/Team Leader which will direct the operations of field office staff, also recruited by the Consultant.
Agricultural staff in the Sub Project offices will be responsible for a systematic agricultural training and extension program based around Demonstration Plots (orientated to Private Farms (average size 20-30 ha) and Farmer Field Schools (oriented to Dehkhan Farmers (farm size about 0.25 ha) and mahalla households with tomorkas (garden-farm size as low as 0.04 ha)). Agricultural staff will also be responsible for promoting measures for Integrated Pest Management (IPM), promotion of gender involvement in irrigation management and financial literacy for access to lines of credit (but credit is not offered by FVWRMP-II). Study tours will be organized at local and national and Central Asian level.
Water management staff in Sub Project offices will be mainly responsible for WCA support, through training in scheduling irrigation demand and supply, system inventory and valuation (including depreciation), calculating equitable and sustainable ISF, and capacity building to improve system maintenance and management including predictive planning and system assessment and monitoring. WCA accounting methods will be reviewed, and training provided.
Study tours will be organized at local, national and international level. Water management staff will also promote innovative irrigation management to farmers, including tertiary system rehabilitation and improvement, and solar-power pumping and volume-based payment for irrigation (both implemented as pilots under FVWRMP-II but not included in this tender), train qualified staff of District Irrigation Departments (DID) and Basin Systems Irrigation Administration (BISA) in MASSCOTE for diagnosing system inefficiencies and investigate the feasibility of using SCADA for improved water management.
