Policy Brief_Uzbekistan Towards 2030: A New Social Protection Model f bunxjnse pwvc en 9 | Page 3

Uzbekistan Towards 2030: A New Social Protection Model for a Changing Economy and Society
The main objective of social protection in the early stages of Uzbekistan’s
transition period was to protect vulnerable groups by providing guaranteed
minimum incomes. In the difficult period of structural reforms, social protec-
tion helped to mitigate some of their undesirable impacts on the population,
to maintain social stability and guarantee basic social rights.
Social protection policies were successful in preventing a large share of the
vulnerable from falling into poverty. Moreover, Uzbekistan managed to pre-
serve the access of children from low-income families to free health care and
education and to maintain its pre-reform levels of literacy.
Social protection helped
to maintain social
stability and ensure
social rights in the
transition period
Economic growth has been strong for almost a decade and the country
has graduated to middle-income status. But this is bringing new challenges
in transforming the economy and society. These transformations will have a
significant effect on the well-being of people, their available choices and social
rights. Demand for social services, in terms of both type and quality, will also
change. The current social protection model will also have to be revised in line
with these new demands and transformations.
The parameters of the social protection model in this new stage of de-
velopment will be determined by the targets and objectives of Uzbekistan’s
overall development policy in the medium- and long term.
Uzbekistan-2030:
Development Goals for the Long term
After 20 years of transition, Uzbekistan has managed to graduate to lower
middle-income status. The main development goal for the country now is to join
the group of upper middle-income countries by 2030. With this end in view, it is
important to maintain stable economic growth rates at 7-8% per annum over the
next 15-20 years. Maintaining such high growth rates while ensuring social stability
will require structural transformation of the economy in a number of directions.
First, with the completion of the 20-year transition period, the industrial
sector has to gradually shift its focus from capital-intensive basic industries
towards developing manufacturing sectors that produce goods of higher tech-
nological sophistication and contribute more to the growth of productive em-
ployment. According to the estimates of CER, to provide the rapid and sustain-
able economic growth the share of manufacturing in GDP will have to increase
from 9% in 2010 to 22% in 2030.
Second, the role of agriculture also needs to be transformed. At earlier
stages of development, the main objective of agriculture was to ensure em-
ployment and help guarantee minimum incomes for a large number of people.
From this point on, it is important to focus more on raising the efficiency of the
agricultural sector to sustain food security, diversify production and promote
productive employment. Increased agricultural efficiency will provide an op-
portunity to attain all the targets set for the sector, while its share in GDP is
forecast to decline from 19.5% to 8%.
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Center for Economic Research
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The publication reflects opinions and views of the working group, which may not coincide with
the official point of view of the Center for Economic Research or UNDP.
© Сenter for Economic Research, 2014 (www.cer.uz)
© UNDP, 2014 (www.undp.org)
UNDP Country Office in Uzbekistan
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Tashkent 100015, Uzbekistan
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