Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 8
By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend:
Tashkent hosted one-day workshop, jointly led by the World Bank and the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services, to discuss reforms in the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector, reads a message of the WB.
The participants deliberated upon challenges and constraints in the WSS sector and considered a range of possible policy and institutional solutions to accelerate progress towards achieving universal access to safe, reliable and sustainable drinking water and sanitation services across Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has made substantial investments in upgrading its water supply and sanitation services over the past decade, amassing the largest public borrowing portfolio for WSS projects of any country in Central Asia. Despite such progress, residents – particularly in rural areas - continue to face challenges in accessing clean and reliable water services.
“In partnership with the World Bank we are successfully implementing the $268 million projects in Bukhara and Samarkand cities, as well as in districts of Syrdarya and Bukhara regions to improve water supply for local population, particularly for those living in rural areas of the country. We are glad that the workshop will allow to discuss aspects of further technical assistance required to support the reform in the WSS sector,” Muzaffar Saliyev, Minister of Housing and Communal Services of Uzbekistan, noted.
“Providing clean water to people across the country is one of the priorities of the Government. The World Bank Group is pleased to support such an important goal. The World Bank Group will continue to support advancement of fundamental policy, institutional and human resource capacity building, in addition to financing infrastructure development. Both soft and hard investments are critical for the WSS sector, and will support developments in the social sphere, as articulated in the Government’s National Development Strategy (2017-2021),” Hideki Mori, the World Bank Country Manager in Uzbekistan, said.
In addition to reform discussions, international experts delivered presentations on subjects relevant to the development of the sector and reforms in Uzbekistan, including performance based contracting for non-revenue water and public private partnerships for professional development.
In Uzbekistan, the World Bank currently supports implementation of 16 projects, which are worth of around $2 billion. Those projects cover such priority areas as agriculture and water resources management, energy, transport, healthcare, education, urban development, water supply and sanitation.