Armenia needs to develop a roadmap for water sector reforms, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, identifying drinking and irrigation water access as key challenges.
Pashinyan said this in his Facebook post dedicated to the “Water Sector Reforms 2026-2031” workshop taking place in Dilijan.
In his remarks, the prime minister highlighted several challenges and priorities,1lurer.am reports.
“When talking about the water sector, we need to make several observations:
- Today, there is not a single community in Armenia that does not have significant and tangible problems related to drinking water.
- Today, there is not a single community in Armenia that does not have significant and tangible problems related to irrigation water.
- Today, only a small portion of Armenia’s arable land, orchards and plantations has access to irrigation. In other words, most of our arable land essentially has no access to irrigation at all. In areas where irrigation is available, irrigation technologies and quality require separate consideration. By 21st-century standards, we use the amount of water that should be sufficient to irrigate dozens of hectares of orchards to irrigate just a few hectares. This is the next critically important aspect of the problem.
- Today, we see thousands of hectares of barren land across the country. It is obvious that there could be thousands of hectares of orchards there, producing tens of thousands of tons of crops, but we are unable to solve that problem.
- The next global problem we face is that wastewater treatment is not the rule but mostly an exception to the rule. It is also obvious that this quality of water use cannot be acceptable in any way because it entails consequences. The next observation we need to make is that our country generates more than enough water resources for us to solve these problems. One of the key issues in today’s discussion is how, and through what roadmap, we can move from where we are today to a point where water is accessible in all parts of Armenia where access is: a) necessary — this concerns communities and ensuring full, round-the-clock access to drinking water; b) access to irrigation water in all communities — this is a very important part of organizing urban and community life; c) access to water in all places where it can create added value. This gives rise to two global challenges and tasks, both of which are directly or indirectly set out in the government program or Armenia’s doctrine of economic and institutional transformation.
“The first task is this: we must strive for and reach a point where no amount of wastewater is discharged into nature without treatment,” he said.
He added that many environmental and public health problems Armenia faces today are connected to the fact that wastewater treatment in the country is not the rule but rather an exception.
“The third global issue we need to discuss is how to accumulate the water resources generated in Armenia, what the most efficient form of storage is, and how they can subsequently be used for irrigation and other purposes.
“In the 21st century, every movement of water is sought to be utilized, including for energy purposes, because water also has significant energy potential,” he said.
