On June 15, the opening ceremony of the Government Accelerator Office took place on the platform of the Center for Economic Research and Reforms in Tashkent. This initiative implemented jointly with UAE partners as part of the program to improve the efficiency of public administration in Uzbekistan.
The event was attended by the Minister of Cabinet Affairs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Mohammad al-Gergawi, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs of UAE - Huda Al Hashimi, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan S.Umurzakov, Director of the Center for Economic Research and Reforms O.Khakimov, the Ministry for the Development of Information technologies and communications, the Ministry of Construction, the khokimiyat of the Buka district and other officials.
The main task of the Accelerator is to promptly and effectively solve urgent problems in the field of socio-economic development proposed by government agencies and organizations without attracting extra financial and nonmonetary resources. For 100 days, Accelerator teams work in partnership with government agencies, the private sector and other stakeholders to develop and implement specific solutions.
The ceremony was officially opened with the welcoming speech by the director of the CERR O.Khakimov. He emphasized the official opening of the Government Accelerator of Uzbekistan is a result of a long journey and a successful strategic partnership between the two countries that reflects the brotherly relationship between the leaderships of our two countries.
“Large-scale reforms are being carried out in our country, aimed at improving the well-being of the population and solving existing problems in the socio-economic sphere.
A vivid example is the establishment of the Accelerator of socio-economic reforms in accordance with the Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan”, noted O.Khakimov.
The head of CERR expressed his sincere gratitude for the support provided by the UAE government in organizing the work of the Accelerator of Socio-Economic Reforms.
Further, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs of UAE - Her excellency Huda Al Hashimi addressed the participants of the event.
“Today we celebrate the official opening of the Government Accelerator of Uzbekistan based on the Center for Economic Research and Reforms, a modern space where Accelerator teams can experiment, create prototypes and achieve lofty goals. The opening of the Government Accelerator is the climax of the journey that began in 2019 with the joint effort by the teams of the two countries.
During this entire period, 260 hours of training were conducted in both UAE and Uzbekistan, including joint workshops that were held to develop the methodology.
Moreover, we are proud that during the launch of Accelerator we witnessed a lot of dedication between the two teams at the regular weekly meetings of Accelerator teams. Moreover, this process did not stop even during the pandemic, but smoothly switched to the methodology of online remote access”, said the Deputy Minister.
In conclusion, Huda al-Hashimi expressed her sincere gratitude to the Uzbek partners, the team of the Government Accelerator, headed by Obid Khakimov – “Today we are here, thanks to the hard work of your team and commitment to the success of this initiative and I am confident that we will continue to work together in the future and are ready to provide any necessary support”.
As part of the event, the Accelerator management presented the results of the first 100-day cycle, which tackled 4 challenges: simplifying the issuance of building permits, developing family entrepreneurship, developing master plans for cities and creating a unified billing system for utility bills.
A number of decrees by Head of State and Government have been adopted and positive changes have been achieved in the construction sector. Moreover, the term for obtaining a building permit has been reduced to 84 days. As a result of the work of the Accelerator team, the delay was eliminated by an average of 30 days. In particular, by synergizing the procedures and strengthening cooperative interaction between ministries and departments involved in the issuance of building permits. Along with this, further work to optimize and eliminate delays in the issuance of permits continues.
Significant success has been achieved in the development of family entrepreneurship. A pilot project to reduce poverty is being implemented in the Buka district of Tashkent region - the Accelerator team has compiled a list of 55 women included in the “Women's Notebook” register who are interested in the development of entrepreneurship. As a result of organized professional courses, participants were assisted in developing business plans, registering their own enterprises and obtaining preferential loans.
Also, the Accelerator has developed proposals for making changes and additions to urban planning norms and rules, which will significantly simplify the process of interdepartmental approval of project documents, reduce the time for the development of general construction plans and the cost of their development.
The data of more than 5.5 million consumers of utilities were processed, and the integration of consumer data between utilities was ensured on the basis of personal identification numbers of individuals, which are used as a single identifier of consumers
The Emirates side emphasized that the effectiveness of the Accelerator and the success of the program to improve the efficiency of public administration in Uzbekistan is superior to the results achieved by the UAE during its testing in other countries.
The main directions of the Accelerator's work within the framework of the new 100-day cycle were also presented: assessing the level of satisfaction of citizens with public services, Formation of energy balance statistics of Uzbekistan in accordance with UN standards, introducing a rating system for business organizations.
The program to improve the efficiency of public administration includes 25 areas, including the development of the National Development Strategy, the improvement of public services, work to improve the position of Uzbekistan in the Doing Business rating, the introduction of innovations, the improvement of tax and customs administration, the practice of managing free economic zones, leadership training and the creation of a personnel reserve for government agencies and many more. As part of the implementation of this program, 124 seminars and about 100 various joint events were organized both in Uzbekistan and in the UAE, in which more than 5 thousand people took part.
Public Relations Service
Government Accelerator
Socio-Economic reforms
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