Uzbekistan Public Expenditure Review: Better Value for Money in Human Capital and Water Infrastructure
Uzbekistan Public Expenditure Review: Better Value for Money in Human Capital and Water Infrastructure
This second public expenditure review (PER) examines the effectiveness of government spending in Uzbekistan, with a particular focus on education, health, social protection, and water resources management. Fiscal policy and transparency reforms implemented recently in Uzbekistan have supported strong economic management through the reforms and helped realign public spending to new priorities emerging from Uzbekistan’s ambitious transformation. Improvements in fiscal policy and public financial management have played an important role in creating a stable macroeconomic environment for reforms to continue. The focus of public finance reforms over the past few years has been to strengthen aggregate fiscal control, management, and oversight. After years of fiscal policy reforms in 2017–21, shifting sectoral focus on delivering better public services to more citizens is timely and much needed. There are significant opportunities to improve the quality of public services by making public spending at the sector level more effective, financially sustainable, and efficient. The emphasis of the government’s reforms is now shifting toward improving public spending effectiveness and service quality at the sector level. This PER looks at several of the most critical services that citizens largely depend on the government for: health, education, social protection, and water.