Center for Central Asia Research

Water as a driver of sustainable recovery: economic, institutional and strategic aspects of water resources management in Central Asia – project

Corvinus University is an associated partner in the implementation of the Erasmus+ HWCA project. The main objective of the World Bank-funded research programme, which ended in February 2024 and supported the launch of the World Bank 2030 WRG activities in Kazakhstan, was to formulate recommendations that would create an opportunity for Hungarian water industry companies to participate in the implementation of the group’s projects and for Hungarian universities to participate in the training of experts and decision-makers. The implementation of the project continued to be professionally coordinated by the Research Centre (Corvinus remained an associated partner in the consortium). The aim was to modernise teaching materials on water diplomacy and water management at 12 Central Asian universities and to train teachers.

In Central Asia, the effects of climate change are most dramatic in the water sector. As the water supply of the countries in the region depends on two large transboundary watersheds, the problems can only be solved through regional cooperation. In the case of both projects, the Research Centre sought to identify the reason for the sector’s three decades of underfunding, the dilapidated state of the infrastructure, which is causing huge losses. In the course of the analysis, we applied the theory of complex interdependence to examine the problems of regional cooperation and formulate recommendations, instead of the previous approaches that focused mainly on engineering and technical issues and advocated copying best practices abroad.