On October 8-9, 2025, the Institute of Legislation and Legal Policy under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan (ILLP) hosted a practical seminar on “Decentralization of Public Administration”, organized jointly with the Agency for Strategic Reforms under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan (ASR), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).
The seminar continued the comprehensive efforts to reform the public administration system within the framework of the “Uzbekistan – 2030” Strategy, aiming to thoroughly discuss issues of power redistribution between levels of government, enhance accountability, and strengthen the role of regions in decision-making.
The event brought together heads and specialists from more than 30 ministries, agencies, international organizations, as well as representatives of the scientific and expert community.
International experts from the OECD and Poland presented an overview of global and regional approaches to decentralization, focusing on administrative, fiscal, and political dimensions of reform. They also highly appreciated the strategic nature of Uzbekistan’s reforms and expressed readiness for further expert cooperation.
The seminar included thematic presentations, interactive sessions, and discussions.
In particular, the ILLP presented a draft organizational and legal model for managing and coordinating the activities of national government bodies, their subdivisions, khokims, local councils (Kengashes) of people’s deputies, and self-government bodies under further decentralization. The key principles of this model were defined as subsidiarity, legality and control, proportionality of powers and resources, financial sustainability, political and administrative accountability, partnership and citizen participation, digitalization, and transparency.
Experts positively evaluated the proposed model and confirmed the importance of implementing its key components:
• Developing a step-by-step decentralization roadmap with pilot regions;
• Legally defining functions between levels of government based on the subsidiarity principle;
• Establishing a sustainable system of inter-budgetary transfers;
• Strengthening the human capacity of local authorities;
• Digitalizing administrative processes, including the use of AI;
• Forming a coordinating body on decentralization issues;
• Expanding citizen participation in local decision-making.
The seminar became an important platform for developing practical recommendations to improve public administration and confirmed Uzbekistan’s readiness to consistently implement decentralization mechanisms based on international standards and participation of all levels of government.
