DUSHANBE, August 27, 2009, Asia-Plus — A meeting of the expert group for working out regional dam safety cooperation agreement has opened in Almaty, Kazakhstan today.
The meeting that is held under auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in the framework of the “Dam Safety in Central Asia: Capacity Building and Regional Cooperation” Project has brought together specialists from Central Asia’s states to consider ways to strengthen safety of operation of more than 300 large dams and other regulating hydropower facilities built on the trans-border river in the region.
Mr. Georgy Petrov, the head of the hydropower engineering laboratory within the Institute for Water, Hydropower and Ecological Studies of the Academy of Sciences, Mr. Rustam Latifov, the head of the water resources, science and technologies within the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources (LRWR), and Mr. Akram Nabiyev, the director of Giprovodkhoz, are representing Tajikistan at the meeting.
The UN News Center’s report in Russian, released on August 21, says that a statement by UNECE draws attention to the fact that emergency shutdown of technically obsolete dams may be disastrous for the downstream countries in the region. According to the report, Central Asia’s states, with the exception for Uzbekistan, currently do not have proper institutional and legal foundation regulating safety of dams. Besides, there are no procedures laid down to notify countries located in one basin about accidents and emergencies on the dams. In this connection, the UN Economic Commission for Europe recommended that the interested countries should lay or review their laws on safety of operation of dams as soon as possible in order to harmonize them as well as promote regional cooperation, the report said.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. It is the forum where the countries of western, central and eastern Europe, central Asia and North America – 56 countries in all – come together to forge the tools of their economic cooperation. That cooperation concerns such areas as economic cooperation and integration, energy, environment, human settlements, population, statistics, timber, trade, and transport.
The Commission offers a regional framework for the elaboration and harmonization of conventions, norms and standards. The Commission”s experts provide technical assistance to the countries of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) and of south-east Europe. This assistance takes the form of advisory services, training seminars and workshops where countries in transition can share their experiences and receive support from other countries in the region.
