Translation of TajikVoice’s post (RUS)

Read Part I here

Note the number – 40%. Yet there exists no statistic in Tajikistan regarding what percentage of the population has no access to potable water.

In 2007, an independent expert panel estimated that 52% of the population had no access to potable water. Ask any expert now, and he will confirm that the situation has not improved, but has only gotten worse.

So why does the President of Tajikistan have no shame in deceiving the international community from his high pedestal?

It’s all very simple.

To accurately calculate the percentage of the population that has access to potable water is extremely difficult and costly. No donor will invest millions in obtaining the true figures. At the same time, it is very important for the president and government of Tajikistan to demonstrate at least some measure of development and quasi-compliance with grant conditions.

Thus, Tajikistan shows that it is supposedly fulfilling its obligations to provide its people with potable water by 2015.

They have five years remaining, and I will not be surprised if in two or three years the number will shrink from 40% to 20% (all with the help of the Tajik government, of course) and settle at the UN target of 10-15% by 2015.

What actually happens to people in the rural regions and whether they survive is not an issue for Tajikistan’s government – nor is it one for the international community and the UN.

Thus, the Tajik government is, yet again, deceiving the international community regarding its population’s access to potable water. It is interesting that the donors, who are aware of the actual situation, are not reacting in any way: they present no objections, they do not demand accountability or accurate numbers on which the statistics are based.

At the moment, the donors financing projects to bring potable water and improve sanitation in Tajikistan are the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Swiss Cooperation Office in Central Asia and the World Bank. Their support goes toward urban water projects. Projects concerning rural water supply are sponsored by USAID, IFAD, Oxfam and JICA.

Massive financial injections were initially administered by international organizations and embassies in the early 90s. However, in the mid-2000s many donors who saw no real change refused to further support reconstruction projects, causing panic in the Tajik government.

When donors turned their attention to NGOs, the government imposed new restrictions: water projects could only be financed through governmental institutions and ministries. Paradoxically, both sides came out satisfied: the donors and the government.

Only the people’s lives did not get any easier. Grant money continues to be stolen, just as it used to be.

To be continued…