Project description
The Project was financed through the Institutional Cooperation Instrument (ICI) the purpose of which is to strengthen the capacity of public sector institutions in partner countries. Having its focus on water, this water quality monitoring project was included into the project portfolio of FinWaterWEI programme.
The
Project Objective was the exchange of experiences for capacity building to adopt broadly recognised good practices to carry out water quality monitoring for water management in the Kyrgyz Republic. The
Project Purpose was to develop capacities to design and to implement the National Water Quality Monitoring Programme (NWQMP) in terms of improving administrative and legislative backup, upgrading QA/QC performance of laboratory and field work, and providing technical assistance in preparing indicators-based assessment reports. The outcome was a better institutionalised water quality monitoring programme and which will cover the control of waste water permits, ambient water quality and cross-border water-borne substances and germs.
The Project aimed at three basic results (project’s components), namely:
Result 1: Policy package supporting the NWQMP; A set of proposals for backing up the Kyrgyz Environmental Administration to design and implement national water quality monitoring programme so that ground for continuity and consistency exists;
Result 2: Indicators-based reporting of water quality monitoring recognised and in use; The progress towards national water quality monitoring program, which includes capacity development for preparing the UNECE/CEP recommended indicators-based water quality reports;
Result 3: Laboratory and field work equipped with appropriate technology to deliver basic services for national water quality monitoring and for compliance enforcement of water permits; A set of revised and renewed procedures for Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) and upgraded tools and instruments to carry out water sampling and to test for water quality. The inter-calibration programme between laboratories is in progress.
The beneficiaries
The State Agency on Environment Protection and Forestry under the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic (SAEPF) is the main Kyrgyz agency responsible for environmental management and was the main beneficiary of the project. SAEPF's tasks in the framework of the Project were to develop and execute national monitoring legislation of environmental and water monitoring.
The main direct beneficiary within SAEFP was the Environmental Monitoring Administration having an ecological laboratory with water analytics and water sampling. The laboratory exercises control on industry waste water permits and provides assistance, when state control inspectors need help to collect samples or analytics services to check, whether the quantities of pollution discharged are within pre-set limits or within carrying capacity of the recipient. The laboratory also takes part in trans-boundary water quality studies and monitoring. SAEPF's regional laboratories were indirect beneficiaries of the Project.
Another direct beneficiary within SAEFP was the Environmental Policy and Strategy Administration, which takes care of the State-of-Environment reporting, covering tasks of national and international reporting. Its task is to carry out Environment-for-Europe reporting, to provide means for improved decision making within UNECE context and to improve access to environmental and water information.
Services provided by SYKE
The idea of the ICI is that capacity can be best enhanced with the help of colleagues from a respective organisation with similar tasks and responsibilities --- in practice the angle of approach is capacity building by means of “twinning”. Therefore this ICI Project was based on cooperation between Kyrgyz and Finnish civil servants. SYKE's experts contributed to capacity building especially on the different aspects of water quality monitoring, water sampling, international reporting, laboratory ProfTest programme and QA/QC through working together with the Kyrgyz experts and by organising trainings in the Kyrgyz Republic as well as in Finland. In addition, SYKE was responsible for project management in close cooperation with SAEPF.
More information
Mr. Ari Mäkelä, Senior Research Scientist, Freshwater Centre, Finnish Environment Institute