According to the ILO, public social expenditure on social protection represents around 10.6 per cent of GDP in Uzbekistan. It is a level below that of some of the Central Asian States. Sustainable social protection financing is critical to ensure the extension of social protection. It requires engagement with the Ministry of Finance, government agencies and the international financial institutions to identify and ensure domestic fiscal space for social protection.

During two days, specialists of the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, Pension Fund and Institute of Fiscal-Budgetary Policy under the Ministry of Finance studied international practices in the filed of financing and planning of the state budget for the purposes of social protection.

“One of the key objectives of the National Social Protection Strategy of Uzbekistan is to improve financing mechanism of the sphere by applying the results-based principles with qualitative and quantitative indicators of programme implementation. The training will help us to use new methods and improve skills that we will be able to apply in practice.” – noted Ms. Gulnora Murodova, Director of the Department of Social Protection of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The training is organized as a part of the ILO project on Developing social protection policies and identifying fiscal space with international financial institutions, implemented in collaboration with the IMF. The project aims to increase capacity of the country to improve governance and sustainability of social protection systems, and to integrate social protection in comprehensive policy responses to support and protect workers and employers during their life and work transitions.