Brief Notes on International workshop on
Municipal Governance and Urban Infrastructure in Uzbekistan
The workshop was organized within the framework of “Improving the Municipal Governance System and
Infrastructure in Uzbekistan” project, which was jointly implemented by the CER and UN ESCAP with
support of UNDP.
Main objective: The workshop had two-fold ultimate goal (i) to present and discuss the findings of the
Phase 1 of the project with wide range of stakeholders and (ii) build partnerships and synergies with
international donors to scale up CER activities on municipal management within the forthcoming phase 2 of
the project with ESCAP.
Participants: The workshop hosted around 60 participants from government agencies, parliament, local
think tanks, academia and mass media, as well as representatives of international donor organizations and
development agencies.
Issues discussed: The workshop had 4 sessions, covering main aspects of (i) urbanization and
industrialization in Uzbekistan, (ii) institutional reforms in municipal governance, (iii) managing urban
infrastructure, (iv) municipal budgets and inter-budgetary relations.
Session 1 was focused on issues of managing the ongoing urbanization processes in Uzbekistan and building
synergies between urban development policy and current strategy of industrialization.
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Limitations of the agrarian development model of Uzbekistan are becoming increasingly evident due to
a growing deficit of water and land resources, demographic pressure coupled with labor migration from
rural to urban areas due to structural reforms in agriculture.
The industrial policy has facilitated the creation of so called “points of growth” (large industrial
enterprises) over the last 15 years. This allowed higher economic growth rates and promotion of
structural reforms. However, so far no spatial frameworks have been created to integrate large,
medium-size, and small businesses into value added chains and promote adequate spatial distribution
of production forces.
The strategy for modernization of the state, economy and society in Uzbekistan should rely on an
integrated approach including a set of policies for (i) distributing production forces, further
industrialization and structural reforms, (ii) development of manufacturing and social infrastructure,
(iii) managing regional labor markets and development of human capital.
Session 2 discussed institutional frameworks for municipal governance and possible institutional solutions
for improvement of municipal governance in Uzbekistan.
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Building an optimal institutional structure of municipal governance requires clear understanding of
expectations of the government and society from the urbanization process (to some extent such
expectations should be shaped during discussions with target audiences), formulation of the common
vision for roles of cities – big, medium, and small – in (i) channeling migration from rural to urban areas,
(ii) promotion of social transformation and integration of rural residents into urban life, (iii) shaping
spatial distribution of labor forces for successful implementation of the industrialization policy.
The governance system should focus on (i) empowerment and building capacities of hokimiyats for
mid- and long-term urban development planning, primarily increasing the capacity in the area of
municipal statistics, (ii) search for effective instruments for managing urban development, as well as
create optimal mix of administrative and economic levers for promotion public and private relations at
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the local level. Nevertheless, even with greater autonomy of municipalities, there should be room for
central government to control performance of local authorities and coordinate local development
policies.
In the context of urbanization, Uzbekistan should ensure a balance between improvement of the
engineering/utility infrastructure and the social infrastructure thus ensuring favorable living conditions
for urban residents.
Session 3 discussed issues of the housing sector development and housing policy in the context of expected
increase in the pressure on the urban infrastructure.
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Availability of skilled managers (municipal governance, municipal property, etc.) both within the
government sector and in the Home Owners Associations will to a greater extent affect development
perspectives of the housing sector in general and enable rehabilitating, modernization and maintaining
efficient public utilities sector.
Changes in current tariff policy and price setting/regulation mechanisms for utility services will
determine financial sustainability of housing and utilities sectors. Tariffs should play a key role in (i)
increasing financial sustainability of enterprises in utility sector, including their capacities to invest, (ii)
promote saving policies and stimulate consumers to be more proactive in managing communal
property.
There is a need to create sustainable mechanisms, which will enable Home Owners Associations and
utility sector enterprises mobilizing additional financial resources for capital repairs and maintenance,
renovation and introduction of energy-efficient technologies, and etc.
Session 4 elaborated on the issues of municipal budgets and inter-budgetary relations.
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Policies on promoting local development, including development of small and medium towns, should
extensively rely on improved capacities of local budgets to implement urban infrastructure projects.
This requires (i) wider budgetary powers of local governments, especially of municipal governments, (ii)
rearrangement of inter-budgetary relations to increase the share of budget expenditures implemented
at the discretion of local governments.
Financing urban infrastructure in a long-term perspective calls for development of public private
partnership. However, currently, neither the government nor the private sector appears to be fully
ready for advanced partnership relations. There is a need for improvement of regulatory framework
and piloting PPP frameworks in different sectors to create necessary political will and capacities.
There is a need for a systemic, holistic approach to addressing urban development challenges. The
government committed to invest extensively into improvement of urban water supply and sanitation,
energy supply and transport networks. Both state budget and IFIs funds are mobilized to adequately
finance infrastructure programs and projects. However, these efforts are rather fragmentary and
sector-bound preventing comprehensive urban infrastructure policy.
Main conclusions and follow up:
The International Workshop for the first time in Uzbekistan raised the issues of urban development in such
comprehensive manner. Participants confirmed that the urban development as a whole and municipal
management will be a mainstream in Uzbekistan for coming decade since the country is undergoing
significant transformations.
The project enabled building a broad network around the urban development and primarily development
of small and medium sized towns that are home to most urban residents in Uzbekistan. The international
workshop facilitated PR and outreach campaign allowing better awareness among target audiences and
setting grounds for a broader discussions of urban development issues among experts community and
wider public.
The project will continue within the framework of phase 2 and in the long run should be focused on
formulation and launching of a major regional initiative – a Central Asia Urban Forum. The idea was
supported by ESCAP and colleagues from other partner institutions (World Bank, Asian Development Bank,
USAID). CER and ESCAP will follow up with all the involved partners to formulate a concept note for
discussion of the possible interagency initiative.