On May 22-23, members of Parliament Sasykbayeva A.A., Altybaeva A.T., Jumalieva E.B., Imanalieva E.S., Imankozhoeva E.B., together with representatives from the Department of Disease Prevention and State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, the Alliance of Women’s Legislative Initiatives, UNICEF, and the Ecological Movement BIOM, visited the Chui and Issyk-Kul regions to study the situation regarding access to water and the provision of sanitation and hygiene conditions in villages, kindergartens, and schools. Staff from the public association “Alga” and the Kyrgyz Alliance on Water and Sanitation participated in organizing and conducting meetings. Ten meetings were held with representatives of local self-government, local council deputies, district education departments, specialists from the Department of Disease Prevention and State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance, school directors and teachers, parents and students, as well as employees of rural drinking water user associations, women leaders of local communities, women farmers, and other villagers. The visit was organized with the support of UNICEF and the International Program “Empowering Women – Benefits for All!” (EWA, WECF international). The women deputies learned about access to water and hygiene provisions in food blocks, and the condition of toilets in children’s social institutions in the Chui region: School-Lyceum No. 2, village of Novopokrovka, Ivanovka station school. In the Issyk-Kul region, deputies visited the resource center of the community-based organization (CBO) “Manzhyly Bokonbaev,” where they met with women who underwent training in milk processing, fruit processing, and guesthouse creation, and a school in the village of Ak Terek, where they became acquainted with energy efficiency practices (SPARE project) and evaluated sanitation and hygiene quality. The deputies also visited the school in the village of Orguchor, which is part of the ARIS/UNICEF sanitation and hygiene project, and the CBO in the village of An-Oston, where staff and residents shared issues related to water supply in the local community and discussed their experiences in problem-solving. Currently, there are many legislative issues related to ensuring proper sanitary conditions and access to water in children’s social institutions and local communities, as the Sanitary Standards and Rules, which provide the normative framework for regulating these issues, currently lack legal status. As a legislative issue, representatives of the CBO highlighted the necessity to pay royalties for extracting water from wells. This norm was introduced by the KR Law “On Subsurface Resources” and requires clarification regarding ensuring the population’s access to drinking water. Questions were also raised regarding production control of drinking water at the village level and interaction between CBOs and local self-government. During visits, women farmers raised issues regarding agricultural practices and the challenges they face.
