Eurasian River Basin Portal

04.05.2018

On the banks of the Syr Darya river:
a dialogic workshop for environmental policy-maker and water-user communities in the Syr Darya Delta, Kazakhstan
Qazaly, Qyzylorda province, Kazakhstan. 22nd-24th September 2018.

Call for Applications

Theme: Theme: Central Asian republics are adopting broader standards to determine the socio-economic complexity of water issues, but often lack the capacities to conduct and implement these approaches. The standards, based on the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approach, seek to expand on the information used in determining river-basin level as a unit of water governance. Recognizing that many issues are politically contested and reflect complex social and power relations, a broader range of experts need to be included to comment and shape water usage policies and governance approaches. However, there is currently a lack of opportunities to bring various experts together to share knowledge and build their capacities. Thus, this workshop seeks to bring together water professionals, decision-makers and local water users to foster social learning among these stakeholders. Thus, the aim of the workshop is to create a platform for interaction between water professionals, decision makers and the local users. The interactions will be grounded in participants’ engagement in local people’s everyday practices related to water, such as fishing and reed-cutting. This event will enhance participants’ understanding of how various competing interests produce water-related decisions and policies and how the latter gets implemented on the ground.
 
Format: introduction to local livelihoods and river use in the mornings, discussion with local stakeholders in the afternoons.

Expected Outcomes: Mutual learning effects will be documented for different audiences in a number of formats, such as a radio program in Kazakh, academic and policy-oriented publications and a travelling exhibition along the Syr Darya.

The event is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and hosted by the trilateral research project ‘Social Life of a River: environmental histories, social worlds and conflict resolution along the Naryn-Syr Darya’. For more information, please visit: https://goo.gl/Jt36cZ

 The workshop languages are Russian, Kazakh and English. Translation will be provided during the workshop. We welcome applications from water experts and practitioners involved in decision-making and implementation of water policies. To participate in the workshop, please, submit a short CV and motivation letter
 to Aibek Samakov (aibek.samakov@uni-tuebingen.de) by  June 10th, 2018. Participants’ travel and lodging costs are covered by the organizers.

More detailed look here