Exploring Water Governance In Kyrgyzstan Through The Prism Of IWRM

Abstract

The subject of this study is the performance of water institutions in Kyrgyzstan from the perspective of a newly introduced paradigm of water management called Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). Compared to other paradigms only this one takes into consideration economic, social and environmental concerns supplemented with significant notion of an intense political process occurring in water management. Being introduced already in the Water Code 2005, IWRM today still faces a lot of challenges. In addition to identified effects of neopatrimonial features in water governance in by international scholars, this paper highlights the existence of problems related to fit between institutional arrangements and bio-geophysical systems and to interplay among institutions located at the same level, as well as among those which interact with each other across different levels.