Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 26 June, the World Bank and its development partners have concluded the two-day Regional Central Asia Development Marketplace 2009 (CADM) and the Knowledge Forum, which brought together 40 CADM finalists and about 60 other participants from five countries in the region. This was the closing event of the multi-country and multi-partner project aimed at uncovering and supporting innovative ideas in Efficient Water Use in Agriculture.

The Central Asia Development Marketplace has demonstrated a very high potential that the local communities and organizations in all five countries have in addressing urgent water availability constraints in their countries. The event also provided a Forum for networking, learning, and sharing experience among farmers’ groups and associations, water users’ associations, civil society organizations, academia, research institutions, and other groups in the Central Asia region.

“Water is life and good water management is essential to sustain agriculture potential in the Central Asia region, particularly in light of its fast growing demography and importance the sector has for poverty reduction,” - said Loup Brefort, World Bank Country Manager for Uzbekistan, at the Opening Ceremony of the CADM final event. "We are very pleased that this Development Marketplace has demonstrated plenty of very interesting ideas, projects and concrete proposals to improve conservation and efficiency of water use by farmers.”

According to Brefort, the impact of global climate change on future water availability and food production capabilities in the region which is highly dependent on irrigation is growing. Accordingly, it is critical to mobilize all resources, and first and foremost the brainpower and experience available from the ground up, to identify, develop and implement practical ideas, approaches and techniques to make every drop of water count and raise agriculture productivity. Mr Brefort believes that innovation will increasingly be key to sustain future economic growth, and even more so in the agriculture sector.

The Central Asia Development Marketplace 2009 was first announced in February 2009 as a competitive process open to various organizations and companies concerned with water problems in the five Central Asia countries. About 150 participants in the region took part in the first round of competition, of which 40 finalists were selected after thorough evaluation by the team of experts. These 40 finalists were invited to the final event in Tashkent on June 25-26, 2009 to compete for awards.

A Grand Jury, consisting of 12 representatives of donor agencies, scientific and research institutes, and international experts in water and agriculture issues awarded about USD 300,000 to 15 finalists as seed money for implementation of their innovative ideas.

The winners of the Central Asia Development marketplace 2009 are:

Kazakhstan:
“Kazakh scientific and research institute of water services”, Ltd.
“Kazakh scientific and research institute of rice production”, Ltd.

Kyrgyzstan:

Public fund "Zhalalabad regional rural consultation service"
Goods-and-services cooperative "Zhiide Bulagy", association of farmers and agricultural producers
Kyrgyz scientific and research institute of irrigation

Tajikistan:

Civil society organization "Saodat"
Civil society organization "Kal’acha"
Kurgan-Tyubinski engineering center under “Tajik research institute of hydraulic engineering and reclamation”

Turkmenistan:

Society of inventors of Turkmenistan
Scientific-experimental unit named after S.A.Niyazov
Public foundation for nature preservation in Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan:

Water user association “Akbarabad”
Uzbek research and development institute of cotton-plant selection and seed farming under the Ministry of agriculture and water management
Representative office of the Central Asian regional ecological center (CAREC) in Uzbekistan

The World Bank initiative to identify and fund innovative solutions for efficient water use in agriculture was generously supported by several development partners: the Department for International Development of the UK (DFID) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (Swiss Government).