The Performance of Water Management Institutions in Syrdarya Basin

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the sharing of transboundary water resources in Central Asia became a regional sensitive issue. Whereas upstream countries are interested to use water resources in order to generate hydropower for domestic needs, downstream Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan insisted on water use for irrigation purposes. So far, the regional water institutions failed to find common solution for water usage. In this regard, this paper examines the performance of regional water management institutions from “insider” and “outsider” perspectives based on five institutional aspects: specificity, feasibility, flexibility, transparency and effectiveness in the organization as suggested by Frank Marty. The article concludes that the regional water management institutions do not perform well in many functional aspects and there is still much to be done on institutional structure and mandate.