Blue Peace Central Asia 2.0 is a regional effort that brings Central Asian countries together to strengthen shared water governance, reconcile competing interests and promote cooperative, mutually beneficial management of transboundary resources.

Central Asia’s water and energy networks – once centrally managed under the Soviet system – now operate under far more complex conditions, as climate impacts, outdated infrastructure and rising demand intensify pressure on shared resources. Much of the region’s irrigation infrastructure is over half a century old, leading to major water losses and heightening the risk of future shortages. In response, governments and regional bodies have been working to strengthen cooperative mechanisms, with institutions such as the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC) and the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) playing central roles. Complementing these efforts is Blue Peace Central Asia (BPCA), Switzerland’s flagship initiative launched in 2017 to advance transboundary water cooperation through dialogue, shared expertise and capacity building, supporting long-term peace and climate-resilient water management across the region.

  • Equity and mutual benefit: promoting fair access to and sustainable use of shared water resources, ensuring that benefits are balanced across countries, sectors, and communities.
  • Trust and transparency: encouraging confidence-building through open dialogue, inclusive decision-making and reliable data exchange among stakeholders.
  • Resilience and adaptability: supporting flexible and forward-looking approaches to water management that respond to environmental change and strengthen institutional capacities.
  • Integrated and cooperative governance: emphasizing water’s interconnectedness with energy, food, ecosystems and society, and fostering joint planning across sectors and levels.
  • Empowerment through education and inclusion: advancing regional expertise by supporting youth engagement, gender equality and academic cooperation, including the creation of new educational pathways in water diplomacy.
  • Hydro-diplomacy: advancing science-informed regional policy dialogues on shared water governance and strategic cooperation
  • Benefit-sharing: supporting transboundary tributary projects that demonstrate the tangible value of cooperation and improve access to financing
  • Capacity building: empowering youth, media and the next generation of water professionals to actively shape regional water cooperation

The Blue Peace Central Asia focuses on five Central Asian countries of the Aral Sea basin: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

GOAL

To create a future where water resources are shared fairly and managed effectively, benefiting everyone in the region.

TIMEFRAME

Blue Peace Central Asia 2.0 will be implemented between 2025 and 2029.

PARTNERS

Led by IWMI, in partnership with IUCN and CAREC.

“Transforming water from a potential source of conflict into a potential instrument of cooperation and peace – at the heart of the Blue Peace mandate. Positioning water as an enabling factor for regional sustainable socio-economic development, stability, and peace, as a contributor to the region’s resilience to the current and future crises. Water secure Central Asia where all people have the “capacity to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water and adequate and equitable sanitation for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and diseases and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability”

Donors

Partners