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UNDP releases eighth National Human Development Report

[Kazakhstan] Borehole #4 will soon be getting a facelift.
David Swanson/IRIN
Precious water flows from a borehole in the southern Kazakh province of Kyzyl Orda
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Tuesday released its 2003 National Human Development Report entitled "Water as a Key Factor of Human Development in Kazakhstan." The report offers a comprehensive review of water resources in the Central Asian nation from the economic, environmental and social perspectives. "In Kazakhstan, water has long been viewed as an unlimited resource, and the system inherited from the Soviet Union does not provide for rational and effective water management," Fikret Akcura, UNDP resident representative for the country told IRIN from the commercial capital of Almaty. "We decided to bring various aspects of water management and the impact of water on human development under one cover, with a view to drawing the attention of the decision makers and the civil society on the many issues that surround the rational use of this precious resource." The report - UNDP's eighth report to date - looks at both trends in the use of water resources and in water consumption. Not only does the report demonstrate key human development indicators, it makes a point that insufficient or poor-quality water sources are a major factor hampering more dynamic economic development and leading to deterioration of people's health and loss of jobs in Kazakhstan. As Central Asia's largest nation, Kazakhstan is a country blessed with vast natural resources, primarily oil and gas, that has provided the nation of almost 17 million with impressive GDP growth rates of up to 13.5 percent annually. Despite that, however, water is still only available in scarce quantities, making it a resource which could impede Kazakhstan's development. "The country holds the last place in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] in terms of water supply. Moreover, almost half (44 percent) of the available water in Kazakhstan comes through the territories of neighbouring nations," the UNDP official maintained. Additionally, the distribution of surface and groundwater in Kazakhstan - the seventh largest country in the world - is quite uneven, with Central Kazakhstan, despite its huge natural resources, having only 3 percent of the country's water. Conversely, Eastern Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has 35 percent. And even when water is present, it might not always be fit for human consumption. "About 50 percent of the population uses drinking water that doesn't meet the standards for mineralisation and hardness," he said, adding almost half of Kazakhstan's population (49 percent) obtained drinking water from decentralised sources with some sort of water treatment, while only 15 percent benefited from piped water systems. There were also great disparities between rural and urban populations, with 75 percent of urban residents being provided with piped water, while only 9 percent of the rural population had access to water pipe lines, Akcura added. Regarding the challenges the country now faced, he cited the water deficit, pollution and inadequate management, as well as a clear need to develop a comprehensive programme of water resource management that embraces the issues of economic development, education, health protection, poverty and environmental protection, as the main issues of concern. Calling for an improvement in state water management, he noted so far, the focus on economic growth had led to water management responsibilities being delegated to bodies that lacked incentives, funds and capacities for optimising potential benefits of water usage. Still other challenges included ensuring an adequate supply of safe drinking water to the population, especially in rural areas, as well as reducing pollution of surface and ground waters and revising the fines system. "By 2010 Kazakhstan hopes to fully employ the "polluter-pays" principle, according to which water treatment costs are to be covered by the polluter including the costs of environmental protection. In addition, charges for water use should motivate users to consume water resources economically and thus contribute to environmental management." Lastly, Akcura said Kazakhstan needed to develop and agree with neighbouring states on a long-term programme of trans-boundary water resources management, as well as to resolve issues of coordination of economic activities among the neighbouring states of Central Asia, Russia and China. And while the government of Kazakhstan was determined to resolve existing problems through a number of state and sectoral programmes, much more was needed. A successful resolution of internal water problems would very much depend on reaching mutually beneficial agreements with neighbouring states. Kazakhstan and other countries of the region were working towards this end, yet a lot remained to be done, the senior UN official concluded. Human development reports are issued annually in countries where UNDP missions operate. Each report focuses on some highly topical theme in the current development debate, deemed by experts as the most important for a given country. This was the first time the report focused on the status of Kazakhstan's resources and water supply.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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