Center for Strategic Studies of Eurasia

    Policy briefs · Oct 3, 2026

    Tajikistan ratifies Rogun's $300m second phase, with $2.9bn of the plan still unpledged

    Tajikistan's lower house ratified a $300m World Bank grant for Rogun's second phase on 2 October. The Bank's own appraisal of that phase puts the remaining cost at $6.29bn, 44 per cent of GDP, with about $2.9bn still to be found and the two largest prospective lenders only “expected to consider” it.

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    A picturesque view of a water dam nestled in a mountainous landscape reflecting calm waters.
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    Contents

    Key takeaways

    • Tajikistan's lower house of parliament ratified the $300m World Bank financing agreement for Rogun's second phase on 2 October 2026 (Asia-Plus).
    • The World Bank's Phase 2 appraisal document puts the Rogun programme's financing envelope at $6.29bn, equal to 44 per cent of GDP, of which $650m is IDA money and $5.64bn must come from other sources; remaining financial needs are “estimated at approximately US$2.9 billion” (World Bank, P513856).
    • In the Bank's May 2026 status table, the European Investment Bank and European Commission ($550m) and the Asian Development Bank ($500m) are both marked “Expected to consider 2026/27”, and $1.25bn of the plan is project revenue “expected from 2027 once Rogun is exporting” (World Bank, P513856).
    • Barqi Tojik's chairman Mahmadumar Asozoda said the generation-consumption imbalance would persist through the cold months and did not rule out rationing; the utility planned winter imports of 306 million kWh, down from 350 million kWh (Times of Central Asia, 17 July 2026).

    Tajikistan's lower house of parliament ratified a $300m World Bank financing agreement for the Rogun hydropower plant on 2 October, Asia-Plus reported, releasing the second phase of the International Development Association's support for the country's largest ever construction project. The money is real and concessional — a grant, not a loan. The question the ratification does not answer is where the rest comes from. On the Bank's own appraisal of this same phase, the remaining cost of finishing Rogun is $6.29bn, equivalent to 44 per cent of Tajikistan's GDP, and roughly $2.9bn of that has no lender attached to it yet.

    What the $300m is, and what it is not

    The grant ratified on 2 October is Phase 2 of a multi-phase programmatic approach whose overall World Bank envelope was fixed at $650m when the Executive Directors approved the programme on 17 December 2024. The Phase 2 project appraisal document records a grant of SDR 219.2m, $300m equivalent, of which $216.1m comes from IDA's Global and Regional Opportunities Window. Phase 1 was $350m, approved in December 2024 and effective only from December 2025; as of the Phase 2 appraisal, $59.2m of it — 17 per cent — had been disbursed.

    Against the programme's total financing envelope of $6.29bn, the World Bank's own share is therefore about a tenth. The appraisal document is explicit that the remaining $5.64bn must come from "other financing sources". Eurasianet covered the approval on 28 September under the summary line "Critics cry foul after World Bank OK's $300 million". The financing question is the narrower one.

    The table of pledges, and the holes in it

    The appraisal document publishes a status-of-financing table dated May 2026, lot by lot. The committed and disbursing entries are mostly Gulf and Islamic funds: the Islamic Development Bank $150m and the Saudi Fund for Development $100m, both approved in 2023; the OPEC Fund $100m approved in 2024; the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development $100m approved in 2025; a first $20m tranche from the Kuwait Fund; $50m from the Qatar Fund for Development. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank's $500m envelope has a first phase of $270m approved in December 2024 and effective from December 2025, but with disbursements still "pending achievement of disbursement conditions". A $150m China Development Bank facility approved in October 2025 was still awaiting effectiveness conditions.

    The two largest outstanding pieces are not pledges at all. The table lists the European Investment Bank and European Commission at $550m and the Asian Development Bank at $500m, each with the status "Expected to consider 2026/27". Together that is more than a billion dollars of the plan, resting on board decisions that had not been taken when the Bank wrote its own appraisal. The document's financial projections put the residual plainly: state budget contributions of about $2bn over 2025-2033, "in line with the annual limits set by the IMF", and "remaining financial needs, estimated at approximately US$2.9 billion", to "be met through grants and loans".

    Revenue that has to arrive before it can be spent

    The third large line in the financing table is not external at all. It is $1.25bn of "project revenue", described as "expected from 2027 once Rogun is exporting". The appraisal expects Rogun OJSC's revenues to rise from $37m in 2025 to $405m in 2033, generating about $1.4bn of operating cash flow over that period to fund part of the remaining capital expenditure. The plant is projected to become fully operational in 2033, with the reservoir reaching full supply level in 2039, according to the Bank's project FAQ.

    The export assumptions behind that revenue have already been revised down. Phase 1 assumed roughly 70 per cent of Rogun's generation would be exported; Phase 2 puts it at about 50 per cent, reflecting the volumes in the signed power purchase agreements with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The appraisal attributes the change to "upward revisions to Tajikistan's domestic demand forecasts" — a larger share of output will be needed at home than was assumed at Phase 1. That correction moves money out of the financing plan: domestic sales are made at tariffs still below cost recovery, which the sector is meant to reach in 2027.

    The debt framing matters because the headline numbers look comfortable. The Bank's April 2026 Macro Poverty Outlook puts Tajik public debt at 18.3 per cent of GDP in 2025, rising only to 19.0 per cent in 2026, on growth of 8.4 per cent in 2025 easing to 6.5 per cent. Yet the same institution assesses public debt as sustainable but "currently at high risk of debt distress", on the joint analysis with the IMF, and warns that "accumulated arrears in the electricity sector compound this challenge". An opinion piece published by Al Jazeera on 29 September, by the researcher Ali Abu Issam, put Barqi Tojik's arrears at an estimated 8.2 per cent of GDP and noted unresolved arbitral awards against the aluminium company TALCO exceeding $300m. Those are the liabilities the 19 per cent does not capture.

    Winter arrives first

    None of this changes the coming season. Barqi Tojik's chairman, Mahmadumar Asozoda, said the mismatch between generation and consumption would persist through the cold months and did not rule out a return to rationing, the Times of Central Asia reported in July; the company planned to import 306 million kWh over the winter, down from 350 million kWh the year before. President Emomali Rahmon has said rationing should end in 2027, when the third generating unit enters service — six years before the Bank's date for full operation. The Bank's appraisal makes the domestic case in the same terms, noting that "severe energy shortages in winter directly undermine industrial productivity" and would worsen without Rogun.

    What to watch

    • Whether the EIB/EC $550m and the ADB $500m move from "expected to consider" to board approval during 2026/27, and on what terms.
    • Whether AIIB disbursement conditions and the China Development Bank effectiveness conditions are met, unlocking money already approved.
    • Whether the power sector reaches the 2027 cost-recovery objective, since domestic tariffs now carry a larger share of Rogun's projected revenue.
    • Whether rationing returns this winter, against the official expectation that the third unit ends it in 2027.

    Ratification was the easy step. The $2.9bn that is neither pledged nor earned is the project.

    Sources

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