Area of Focus: Peacebuilding and conflict prevention
The Aral Sea Basin is shared by five Central Asian Countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Additionally, the basin includes parts of Afghanistan and a small part of Iran. Due to lack of regional planning exacerbated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Aral Sea has suffered from one of the worst environmental degradations on our planet. Beyond the loss of 60 kilometers of the Aral Sea shoreline, the lack of cooperation between the upstream countries and downstream countries has resulted in lost opportunities for mutual benefit water management, mis-allocation of resources for agricultural management, lost opportunities for much needed hydro-electric development and the probability of severe water shortages affecting increasing populations.
Additionally, lack of regional planning puts citizens of several countries at risk of serious loss of life or displacement of large populations for not undertaking any risk mitigation for the eventual breach of the earthquake-created dam holding back large volumes of water in Lake Sarez.
On two occasions, The Rotary Foundation has sponsored workshops in conjunction with UNESCO-IHE and additional agencies to bring together appropriate representative professionals from the seven countries in the Aral Sea Basin to consider a framework for addressing transboundary water conflict management. We have been advised by professionals in the field that this is the first diplomacy-based workshop involving Aral Sea Basin participants. The workshops were hosted by UNESCO-IHE, the first in October of 2014 and the second in December 2016.
In conjunction with these efforts, an academic program has been identified whereby students from the Aral Sea Basin countries can study at the graduate level and the knowledge gained can be used to develop a diplomatic framework to address the challenging and conflicting transboundary Aral Sea Basin issues. This program, the Water Cooperation and Diplomacy Program involves the University for Peace in Costa Rica, IHE-Delft, and Oregon State University.
The cost of the 18-month program is approximately US$78,000 with the next academic year commencing the Fall of 2022. At this time, we are hoping to find funding for two students from the Central Asian countries to go through the program as a cohort. District 5110 in Oregon is providing the funding for one scholarship and through this grant request we would like to fund another scholarship
Approved
This project is "Approved". This means the application has been approved by The Rotary Foundation, and the project is ready for implementation.
Project listed for the 2022-23 Rotary Year.
The TRF Grant application number is #223494.
Proposed Financing
Existing Contributions Towards This Project
Date
Cash
DDF
Total
District 1600 DDF
24-Apr-22
-
$5,000
$5,000
West Palm Beach (6930)
24-Apr-22
$3,000
$4,500
$7,500
La Mesa (5340)
24-Apr-22
$52,000
$6,000
$58,000
Amount Requested from The Rotary Foundation
-
$12,400
$12,400
Total
$82,900
DDF contributions in grey are pending approval of the corresponding district committee.
Note: as of July 1, 2015 there is a 5% additional support fee for cash contributions. This fee does not appear in the financials above because it does not apply if the funds are sent directly to the project account (without going through TRF, and therefore without Paul Harris credit). Clubs sending their cash contribution to TRF must be aware they will have to send an additional 5%.
