LocationsUNDP and The Coca-Cola Foundation expand a decade-long water partnership to new communities across the Aral Sea region
UNDP and The Coca-Cola Foundation Launch New Water Access Initiative in Karakalpakstan, Building on a Decade of Proven Impact
June 23, 2026
The Sabirova family, Khilol community — four years after a UNDP–Coca-Cola Foundation project brought clean drinking water to all 3,011 residents for the first time.
Photo: UNDP Uzbekistan/Gulnur Kaypnazarova
Water access in Karakalpakstan is not a simple infrastructure problem. It is a question of geography, climate, and the particular circumstances of the region's most remote communities, where the distance from district centers, the absence of roads, and the depth of need make development especially challenging. Meeting these challenges requires joint effort and partners willing to work where the need is most acutely felt.
During the visit to Karakalpakstan, Ms. Begum Yontar Avci, Senior Director for Sustainability, Eurasia and Middle East region at The Coca-Cola Company, traveled to the completed projects in Chimbay and Urgench to see, firsthand, what a decade of partnership has delivered.
In Kosterek community, Chimbay district, residents have been drinking clean, desalinated water for eight years. The reverse osmosis system installed under a 2022 UNDP– The Coca-Cola Foundation project replaced equipment that had deteriorated to a quarter of its intended output, producing water that exceeded acceptable salinity levels. Today, 1,269 people including 784 women turn on a tap and receive water that meets sanitary standards.
In Khilol community, Urgench district, four years ago only 1.3% of residents had access to clean drinking water, the lowest rate in all of Khorezm region. A 12-kilometer water supply network brought running water to all 3,011 residents, including 1,425 women, for the first time.
Both systems still run. Both communities still drink clean water. The visit marked the official launch of the next phase: "Enhancing Resilience of Remote Communities in Aral Sea Regions of Uzbekistan," a new regional initiative funded by The Coca-Cola Foundation and implemented by UNDP, spanning both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in recognition that the water crisis of the Aral Sea region knows no borders. In Uzbekistan, the project will reach three of Karakalpakstan's most remote communities — Kostruba, Karabayli, and Daukara.
In Kostruba, a new water station will be constructed above an artesian well drilled in the 1970s, providing 27 households with a daily capacity of 24,000 liters. In Karabayli, rehabilitation of existing infrastructure will serve 101 households and 719 people. In Daukara, rehabilitated systems will reach 597 households 3,263 people the largest single beneficiary group across all three sites.
"What we saw today in Kosterek and Khilol is proof that sustained, targeted investment works. Communities that once had no reliable access to clean water now have systems that have run for years and continue to serve thousands of people. This is what The Coca-Cola Foundation's partnership with UNDP is built on — not one-time interventions, but lasting change. We are proud to extend this commitment across the Aral Sea region, in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, because the water crisis does not stop at borders."
- Ms. Begum Yontar Avci, Senior Director, Sustainability Eurasia and Middle East region, The Coca-Cola Company
Why Water Arrives Last in Karakalpakstan and What Water Actually Changes
Karakalpakstan sits at the very end of the Amu Darya River, the terminus of a transboundary waterway that begins in Tajikistan, flows through Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, passes through Uzbekistan's other regions, and arrives in Karakalpakstan last. By the time water reaches the republic's rural communities, it carries elevated levels of minerals, pesticides, and contaminants accumulated upstream. According to a peer-reviewed environmental study, sampling across 79 locations in Karakalpakstan found water salinity far above safe thresholds and organochlorine pesticides exceeding reference levels in 100% of water samples tested.
The absence of clean water is not only a health crisis it is an economic and social one. The burden of water collection falls disproportionately on women and girls: time spent fetching water is time taken from school, work, and community life. Families spend household income on preventable illness. Girls in rural communities face the steepest cost between collecting water and caring for sick relatives, education becomes a secondary priority. Clean water, in this context, is not one development goal among many. It is the foundation that makes the others possible.
“Access to clean water is the entry point for everything else we work toward in Karakalpakstan — health, education, economic opportunity, gender equality. When a community gets reliable water, it is not just a pipe that changes. It is the time women get back, the children who stay in school, the families who stop spending on preventable disease. This project, and this partnership, are how we deliver on that understanding where it matters most."
- highlighted Akiko Fujii, UNDP Resident Representative in Uzbekistan.
In a region where the drying of the Aral Sea has reshaped the environment for generations, restoring reliable access to clean water is not only a human development goal but an environmental one. Since 2011, UNDP and The Coca-Cola Foundation have built a partnership grounded in a shared conviction: that the communities facing the greatest water challenges deserve targeted, sustained investment and that the most effective way to deliver it is together. The Coca-Cola Company's global water strategy places collective action at its center the conviction that no single actor can solve water challenges alone. Combining The Coca-Cola Foundation's financial commitment with UNDP's community mobilization methodology and long-term implementation capacity, the partnership consistently reaches the most remote communities, leaving no one behind.
Bartrem, C., Kurbanov, M.I., Keller, B.D., Fiori, A., von Lindern, I., Khajiev, P.Z., Rustamov, D., Lee, J., Steiner, M., & Paluaniyazova, Z. (2025). Organochlorine Pesticides and Salinity in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan: Environmental Health Risks Associated with the Aral Sea Crisis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(11), 1751. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22111751
