Uzbekistan plans 133 projects worth $3.3 billion in water management, environmental protection and socio-economic development during its chairmanship of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) in 2027–2029, reported Gazeta.uz.
The projects are to be financed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the EBRD, the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility and other partners. They include:
- modernising water infrastructure and automating water distribution;
- a regional digital platform for hydrometeorological data with flood and drought early warning;
- a unified database for the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins;
- anti-desertification projects;
- bachelor’s and master’s programmes in water management for students from Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Tashkent also plans to reform the fund’s structure and legal framework and to strengthen cooperation with Afghanistan. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered a month-by-month roadmap for 2027.
The Central Asian states created IFAS in 1993 to deal with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, once the world’s fourth-largest lake and now one of the worst man-made environmental disasters of the 20th century. Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa canal, which will draw water from the Amu Darya, makes regional water cooperation more urgent.
CentralasianLIGHT.org,
November 10, 2026