Tashkent hosted the final extended meeting of the Coordination Council of the Joint project of the Center of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the United Nations Development Programme on "Developing climate resilience of farming communities in the drought prone parts of Uzbekistan", funded by the Adaptation Fund.

November 24, 2021. Tashkent city. Today, during the final extended meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Joint project of Uzhydromet and UNDP, funded by the Adaptation Fund " Developing climate resilience of farming communities in the drought prone parts of Uzbekistan ", the key results of joint activities were announced.

The project has been implemented since 2014 in the most vulnerable to climate change northern regions of Karakalpakstan. The date of the project’s official closure is November 30, 2021.

Welcoming speeches towards the meeting participants were delivered by Mr. Bakhitjan Habibullayev, a member of the Government of the Republic of Karakalapakstan, Mr. Sherzod Habibullayev, Director General of Uzhydromet, and Ms. Matilda Dimovska, UNDP Resident Representative in Uzbekistan.

Representatives of key partner organizations, including Uzhydromet, the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, the State Forestry Committee of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, pasture cooperatives formed with the support of the project, shared information about the progress of cooperation within the framework of the project and stressed on the results.

During the event, the main achievements of the project were highlighted, experts informed that in 2017 entire observation network of the Karakalpak Hydrometeorology Administration was automated through procurement and installation of equipment for 10 automated meteorological stations in the Republic of Karakalpakstan.

Two key hydrological posts were equipped with Doppler profilographs that allow measuring the speed and depth of the flow, as well as water flow itself.

Automation of the observations network has created the basis for data support of the drought early warning system, developed within the project, with a lead time of six to eight months for  the Amu Darya downstreamr. Timely information about the risk of water scarcity and drought allows farmers to plan the  crops profile for the coming year in accordance with the  expected water resources availability. The information is distributed to the end users through the multimodal information platform, which was also developed as part of the project.

Before the platform was put into operation, users received informational bulletins  and notes  with long-term estimates of water availability for the lower reaches of the Amu Darya. 5,157 users, among whom 876 are women, received information through newsletters and references.

With the assistance of the project, three Consulting and Information Centers have been created and equipped with the necessary specialized equipment:

• at the Nukus branch of the Tashkent State Agrarian University in Nukus;
• at the Agricultural and Industrial College of Kegeyli district;
• at LLC "Konsawt Markaz".

21,200 farmers and owners of household lands, including over 6,000 women have already used the services of the Centers. Moreover, during the COVID 19 pandemic, when strict quarantine was declared in the country, specialists of Consulting and Information Centers continued to provide information support online through a specially created group in the Telegram messenger.

During the discussion, the members of the national interdepartmental group stressed the importance of the results achieved by the project in terms of improving the well-being and resilience to climate change of vulnerable rural communities, the innovativeness of the approaches demonstrated by the project and their high efficiency, pointing out that the results of the project can and should be used to further promote the national adaptation action programme and serve as a basis for the preparation of larger-scale territorial and human initiatives.

Representatives of rural communities shared how project activities have improved their well-being and ability to adapt to difficult climatic conditions.

So about 41,200 people, among them 17,663 women, apply the practices of climate-resistant resource-saving agriculture, such as minimal tillage, mixed cultivation of crops, feed production, covering the soil with crop residues and a number of others.

43,750 farmers, 39% of them women, use water-saving practices, such as laser leveling and drip irrigation systems, which make it possible to halve water consumption.

As a result of project activities aimed at promoting climate-resistant practices in agriculture, 57,875 people, 27,709 of them women, have been trained and actively use 2,680 greenhouses and hotbeds installed in pilot districts.

Technical assistance was provided for planting saxaul seedlings on the territory of 75,800 hectares of the drained bottom of the Aral Sea.

For the first time in Karakalpakstan, the experience of the development of pasture communities has been introduced. 13 pasture cooperatives have been established, uniting residents of 19 rural gatherings of citizens with a total number of 64,723 people, of whom 50.3% are women. At the same time, 25,889 people of which 13,014 – women, are  the members of pasture cooperatives. Besides, the Association of Pastoral Cooperatives of Karakalpakstan was Established. Cooperatives have established nurseries on an area of 50 hectares for the cultivation of saxaul seedlings. During 2019-2021, cooperatives provided the State Forestry Committee of the Republic of Karakalpakstan with 30 million seedlings to create saxaul plantations on the drained bottom of the Aral Sea on the territory of 30,000 hectares.

In conclusion, the decision of the Coordinating Council was made with a high assessment of the project activity.

The priority of taking measures to adapt to climate change is becoming increasingly high in the emerging national policy to ensure the sustainable development of the country and the results of this project have made a significant contribution to this process.