More than 80 Uzbek government officials and international partners met last week in Tashkent for the third meeting of the Uzbekistan Country Platform. The meeting discussed the progress completed by three Working Groups covering critical areas for Uzbekistan’s development: water resources and supply, and sanitation; transport; urban and rural development, the Delegation of the European Union to Uzbekistan reported.
The Water Resources, Water Supply, and Sanitation Working Group demonstrated the results of fostering the integrated water resources management principles and shared further plans to provide communities across Uzbekistan with access to safe and adequate drinking water and sanitation services for ensuring health security.
The Transport Working Group highlighted progress made on the provision of safe and high-quality transport services to passengers across the country, concentrating on the transition towards efficient and environmentally friendly types of transport. The Transport experts from the Uzbek government and international organisations also noted investments underway to construct infrastructure that meets global standards, as well as the importance of the new Railroad Transportation Law approved by the Senate recently.
Finally, the Working Group on Urban and Rural Development presented some of the recent reforms, including the adoption of the new Urban Planning Code and the development of numerous planning documents for urban and rural settlements.
The Country Platform is chaired by the Agency for Strategic Reforms under the President of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Uzbekistan. By bringing together all the major stakeholders, the Country Platform helps ensure technical and financial assistance is directed efficiently towards the objectives of the 2030 Strategy.
The European Union (EU) is the lead international partner providing the secretarial support to the Country Platform until the end of 2025.
Toivo Klaar, Ambassador of the European Union to Uzbekistan, emphasized that “through technical assistance, provision of grants, and support to the Country Platform, the EU helps advance the government’s ambitious reform agenda. More exchanges between the government and development partners lead to achieving the expected results more efficiently and timely.”
