Anastasia Likhacheva, Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at HSE University and Director of the Centre for Water Resources Research of the Institute for Economics of Natural Resources and Climate Change, took part in a meeting of the Scientific and Expert Council under the Security Council of the Russian Federation, where she delivered a keynote report on water challenges in Central Asia.
© Russian Security Council
In her address, Anastasia Likhacheva outlined a number of fundamental approaches to shaping water policy oriented towards long-term sustainability. In particular, she stressed that priority should be given to joint scientific research into future water risks, including projections of river runoff, trends in water consumption, and the potential for improving water-use efficiency over a 10–20-year horizon. According to Anastasia Likhacheva, both Russian experts and specialists from Central Asian countries currently lack sufficiently accurate assessments of these parameters, which hampers the development of effective policy solutions.
Special attention in the report was devoted to the role of agriculture as the largest consumer of water resources. In this context, she proposed exploring new mechanisms to ensure food security that are adapted to conditions of growing water scarcity.
Anastasia Likhacheva also highlighted the need to develop “blue finance”. Existing green finance mechanisms, she noted, are insufficient to address large-scale water challenges. In this regard, she emphasised the potential of bringing together the agendas of water-scarce regions, including Central Asia, southern Russia, and African countries.
She further argued that discussions about diverting Siberian rivers do not address systemic water problems and divert attention from more practical tasks. These include the development and deployment of water-saving technologies, the localisation of production of relevant equipment in Central Asia, and the creation of new financing instruments for water projects.
