Methodology for Ranking Irrigation Infrastructure Investment Projects

The Government of Uzbekistan is aware that the irrigation and drainage infrastructure constructed under the Former Soviet Union - serving some 4.3 million hectare of cultivable land for agriculture as well as many villages for drinking water - is...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: World Bank
Format: Policy Note
Language:English
en_US
Published: Washington, DC 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/01/16343757/uzbekistan-methodology-ranking-irrigation-infrastructure-investment-projects
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13014
Description
Summary:The Government of Uzbekistan is aware that the irrigation and drainage infrastructure constructed under the Former Soviet Union - serving some 4.3 million hectare of cultivable land for agriculture as well as many villages for drinking water - is in urgent need of repair and/or rehabilitation. Also, given multiple competing demands of investment project proposals (as many as 180) on the nation's limited, annual investment budget earmarked for this purpose, it realized the need for a national strategy aimed at modernizing the water sector including a medium-term investment plan. It has thus asked the World Bank to undertake, over a two-year period beginning in mid-2007, a study that is designed to provide solutions to the twin problems of how to approach the rehabilitation of the irrigation and drainage sub-sector and which of the many competing projects to prioritize. To overcome this problem as well as the general lack of readily available, comparable data of proposals, the technical working group used the Investment project data sheet to gather relevant information from sub-basin authorities throughout the country with the instruction to fill in the required information. Initial progress with data collection proved extremely slow and cumbersome as the habit of looking at projects in an integrated manner, i.e. costs as well as benefits, had not been previously practiced in Uzbekistan. Given the foregoing, throughout the study period increasing emphasis was placed on formal as well as informal training in project preparation techniques of technical working group personnel and interested Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources and Ministry of Economy personnel.