The Government of Uzbekistan is awarethat the irrigation and drainage infrastructure constructedunder the Former Soviet Union- serving some 4.3 millionhectare of cultivable land for agriculture as well as manyvillages for drinking water - is in urgent need of repairand/or rehabilitation. Also, given multiple competingdemands of investment project proposals (as many as 180) onthe nation's limited, annual investment budgetearmarked for this purpose, it realized the need for anational strategy aimed at modernizing the water sectorincluding a medium-term investment plan. It has thus askedthe World Bank to undertake, over a two-year periodbeginning in mid-2007, a study that is designed to providesolutions to the twin problems of how to approach therehabilitation of the irrigation and drainage sub-sector andwhich of the many competing projects to prioritize. Toovercome this problem as well as the general lack of readilyavailable, comparable data of proposals, the technicalworking group used the Investment project data sheet togather relevant information from sub-basin authoritiesthroughout the country with the instruction to fill in therequired information. Initial progress with data collectionproved extremely slow and cumbersome as the habit of lookingat projects in an integrated manner, i.e. costs as well asbenefits, had not been previously practiced in Uzbekistan.Given the foregoing, throughout the study period increasingemphasis was placed on formal as well as informal trainingin project preparation techniques of technical working grouppersonnel and interested Ministry of Agriculture and WaterResources and Ministry of Economy personnel.
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