Jay-Tajikistan

Water in Tajikistan
Envi Hlth, Trop Med, and IHD
Jay Colingham
MPH Candidate – International Health and Development
Monday, August 16, 2010
Introduce name and Department

“a wild and different place”
‘Country’
‘English Young Chicken’ or
Southern Fried Chicken
“looks a bit like New Orleans”

Tajikistan
Reference to location north of Afghanistan, East of the Aral Sea and Iran, and west of China
Or
North from india through pakistan and afghanistan

Multiethnic: Drawing from Persian, Caliphate, Hindu, Greek (Alexander the great was there), and later Russian

Background
 Free from Soviet reign upon
USSR collapse in 1991.
 A massive civil war followed.
 Speak Tajiki and Russian
 8 Million people (60% rural)
 IMR 54.14/1000 live birth
 <5MR 118/1000
 452 Lab confirmed cases of
Polio this year

Problems
 Quickly declining
infrastructure
 Drug and Human Trafficking
 Social apathy towards
change due to recent war
 Tyrannical Dictatorship
 Heavy External Influences
 USA, Iran, Russia, China
 Intense flooding
Problems seem to perpetually plague the region as weather, dictators, and illegal trade have infiltrated every aspect of life.

Water Projects
 Monitoring and Evaluating
12 villages within 50 km of
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
 Working on an ongoing
project in Bishkek,
Kyrgyzstan
 Investigating new projects
in Afghanistan and
Kazakhstan
 Editing the Standard
Operating Procedures for
my company
My job was to address the following and also update the website.

Sometimes projects are abandoned, others fogotten

Other times they continue to work until the break, or are complimented by a few other projects

M & E
 Interviews
 Questionnaires
 Water samples
 GPS Mapping
 Data Analysis
 Recommendations
My translators and surveyors

Some work we had done a few years ago.

Interviews and Surveys
 Designed simple surveys
and educated surveyors
 Created and formatted a
dataset
 Ran analysis on collected
data
 Interviewed village ‘chiefs’
 Was asked for “5 Million
Dollars”
 Drank a LOT of tea
A pump house in a 1500+ HH city we outfitted for water 5 years ago

Water and water collection

Water Sampling
 Duplicate samples
 pH buffering
 Ion Spec
 Arsenic
 Lead
 Phosphorus
 Other Heavy Metals
 Water sources and outlets
 GPS Mapped
Hope the video works: play video and talk about simple collection at outlets and as far up the line as we could get
someone to take us. GPS tagging when skies would allow
13 second video

Water can be simple, complicated, or non-existent, but it is always a part of life.

Surprise Wedding
Wedding dance!
13 second video

Developing Projects
 Ongoing project in Bishkek
delayed due to coup and
ethnic war
 80 potential projects
identified in partnership
with Rotary and Unicef in
Almaty, Kazakhstan
 Added a chapter to the
Standard Operating
Procedures for Central
Asian Village Water Supply
 Collaborated with upcoming
USAID, UNDP, and Mercy
Corp projects on Water
User Associations and
water Supply Design
I helped get 80 projects in Almaty going and talked to the Bishkek project a lot before the coups and decided to table the
project until next summer.

UN High-Level Conference
 Attended and participated
in committees on Water
Quality and Measurement of
Water Indicators
 Toured the Worlds Tallest
Dam
 Met dignitaries and
ambassadors from all over
the world
 Saw President Rahmon and
Amadinejad speak
I attended the UN conference on water “Water for Life” Mid term in the Decade of Water for MDG 7

Water Quality Committee
 Ministers of Water and
Sanitation from Nigeria and
India were in attendance
 Speakers from various
NGOs and Universities
 Integrated Water Resource
Management models
 Water User Associations
Imam Umar – Nigerian Minister of Water and Sanitation
UN Board for MDG 7

Amadinejad and Rahmon
President of Iran and Rahmon: The same day the UN added another Nuclear Sanction on Iran, while Amadinejad spoke
about the need of nuclear energy to provide water to the people.

HYPEK (aka Norak)
 Toured the worlds tallest
dam with the UN
representatives
 The former power center of
the Soviet Union
 Now running at 19%
capacity
 Can produce 3000 MW
 300m tall and 700m wide
Earth dam, soon to be ousted by a slightly taller Rogun dam in southern Tajikistan, the cause for the commerce and
economic battle with Uzbekistan

HYPEK
Map of power transmission to USSR
Norek used to power most of the USSR

Lessons Learned
 Professor Abdelghani is
right, about everything.
 Water is the gateway to
economic growth,
population health, and even
education
 Eating Tajik Salad is like
playing Russian Roulette
with your colon
I lost some weight and have some horror stories but all in all, I lived in the place where water and health has one of the
most visible connections

Public Health is Everywhere
Found in my apartment from
the sex worker who lived there
before me
Some other public health programs at work. OPV administration was intense, AIDS awareness in a country where the
social stigma often means deportation, smoking is huge but some restaurants forbid it, turkish buckle up campaign, and
condoms for sex workers

One more thing

Istanbul, Turkey
Make sure your Layovers are
Tea in Amsterdam with old ski buddies from Argentina and weeks of layover in Istanbul made for some unforgetable times
with incredible people.

Jay-Tajikistan

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