Technical Assistance Completion Report

Abstract

Land degradation is one of the greatest challenges facing all the five Central Asian Countries (CACs). Irrigated agriculture has been practiced in these countries for a long time. Various food crops continue to be grown under rainfed and irrigated conditions. In irrigated lands, poor practices have resulted in water logging and salinization, as well as loss of soil nutrient, and soil erosion. The root causes of these problems are inappropriate land, agricultural and water policies, regulations, and incentives; the inability of Governments to adopt and implement Sustainable Land Management (SLM) due to their relatively weak capacity; and a host of environmental problems arising in part from inadequate, inconsistent, and weakly implemented environmental laws as well as those arising from natural and anthropogenic causes. The Central Asian Countries Initiative for Land Management (CACILM) is a partnership of CACs and development cooperation partners dedicated to combating land degradation and improving rural livelihoods. ADB is responsible for leading the CACILM partnership, coordinating programs at the multi-country and national levels, and supporting activities at the multicounty level. This TA covers CACILM Phase I: Inception, focusing on capacity building, from 24 November 2006 to 31 December 2008.