Backstopping Mandate for SDC Water Domain in Tajikistan

The Swiss Cooperation Office (SCO) in Tajikistan has mandated Skat Consulting Ltd. to provide comprehensive backstopping services for its extensive water portfolio, ensuring technical quality and strategic coherence across all Swiss-funded water interventions. Operating through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the Swiss water portfolio in Tajikistan encompasses rural and urban water supply and sanitation projects, national water resources management programs, groundwater resources management and regional IWRM initiatives. The Backstopping Water mandate (BSW) serves as a technical, thematic, project management and strategic orientation support mechanism linking SCO and the diverse constellation of implementing partners including Helvetas, Aga Khan Development Network, International Secretariat for Water (ISW).

Skat's backstopping mandate operates through four core service pillars.  

• Technical assistance encompasses the systematic review of project documents, evaluation of technical designs and quality assurance of infrastructure, governance and system strengthening components, and providing advice on complex implementation challenges.
• Strategic advisory services include policy dialogue support, defining harmonised positions for policy dialogue based on experiences across the different project of SDC, as well as guiding the further development and orientation of SDC projects in Tajikistan.  
• Quality assurance involves regular field missions to project sites, technical monitoring of infrastructure quality, and verification of project outcomes against planned objectives.  
• Peer learning includes the facilitation of knowledge exchange between projects, organisation of technical workshops and training sessions, and the development of guidance materials and best practice documentation. It also foster coordination allowing reducing duplication between projects working in different intervention regions across the country.  

The mandate delivers specialised expertise across multiple thematic domains of the Swiss Water Portfolio. In rural WASH, technical support covers district-level planning approaches, community management models, appropriate technology selection, testing of decentralised sanitation models including decentralised waste water treatment, access to WASH in schools and health care facilities, tariff setting approaches and sustainability mechanisms for operation and maintenance. For integrated water resources management, Skat supports elements of the national water resource management project such as river basin planning, water user association development, national water information system establishment, and implementation of river basin management plans. The emerging groundwater management component focuses on aquifer assessment methodologies, groundwater monitoring systems, sustainable extraction practices, and integration with surface water management and also allows Skat to provide synergies with its own groundwater management project implemented on behalf of SDC in North Macedonia.

Skat employs a flexible implementation modality combining field presence with continuous remote support. Field missions include technical reviews at project sites, facilitation of coordination meetings, delivery of targeted training sessions, and strategic planning workshops with implementing partners. Remote backstopping allows providing timely responses to technical queries, review of project documentation, preparation of technical guidance notes, and regular virtual consultations with project teams.

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