J-PAL and Uzbekistan: the beginning of partnership and sharing experiences in the fight against poverty

On May 10-11, 2022, the Center for Economic Research and Reforms (CERR) and J-PAL Europe / Paris School of Economics (PSE) organize the research and policy workshop on the "J-PAL and Uzbekistan: the beginning of partnership and sharing experiences in the fight against poverty".

It will bring together leaders and representatives of state bodies responsible for the development and implementation of anti-poverty policies, foreign experts and representatives of scientific and expert-analytical areas.

Uzbekistan has started an active work against poverty and is forming comprehensive approaches to overcome it.

The reform program in Uzbekistan has been adjusted over the past two years to respond to the negative consequences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The implementation of measures to strengthen social protection and reduce poverty has been accelerated in order to preserve the lives of citizens and their well-being. At present, huge attention is being paid to the development of healthcare and education.

In recent years in the field of social support, "iron", "women" and "youth notebooks" and methods of work in the context of makhallas (the "Makhallabay" system) have been introduced. The number of families covered by social protection has doubled and their financial security has increased. Child benefits for low-income families were introduced, at the same time the age limit for children was increased from 14 to 18 years and the period of payment of benefits from 6 months to 1 year. According to the World Bank, about 5.2 million people in Uzbekistan received financial assistance during the pandemic.

The task has been set to completely eradicate extreme poverty by the end of 2026, to reduce the level of relative poverty by 2 times. In addition, measures will be taken to reduce income inequality from the level of in 7 times in 2020 to the 4-5 times in 2026.

During a meeting with representatives of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), organized on the initiative of the Center for Economic Research and Reforms (CERR), representatives of J-PAL noted there are more than 260 affiliated researchers around the world who have worked in areas relevant to Uzbekistan’s policy priorities.

For the recordJ-PAL is a global research center founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

J-PAL, which was founded by Nobel Prize winners Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, is organizing a research and policy workshop along with CERR to promote the designing and testing innovations in cooperation with the Government of Uzbekistan to increase the impact of their programs to combat poverty.

In respect that Uzbekistan is at the initial stage of formation and development of integrated approaches to overcoming poverty, it is extremely important to study existing global evidence in combating poverty to inform the government’s programs.

During the workshop, representatives from J-PAL will share the learnings from randomized evaluations relevant to Uzbekistan's experience in combating poverty and discuss opportunities for developing further evidence-based programs.

The goal of the event is to study the world's best practices and methods of combating poverty and to form priority areas for future joint research in the coming years with a special focus on social protection, employment and entrepreneurship as well as education.

In particular, it is planned to study the experience of randomized control trials of social programs of various governments, the best practices of research processes (methodology and procedures of scientific activity) and to discuss the potential for the research partnership with specialists affiliated with J-PAL.

The following topics will be studied during the workshop:

  1. Strengthening social protection and targeting (multi-faceted programs to provide funds to the poor).
  2. Improving the quality of training programs in the labor market (skills training, reducing search barriers, promoting international labor migration).
  3. Support for the growth of small enterprises (identification and support of highly effective entrepreneurs).
  4. Expanding access to high-quality education (costs and incentives, healthy nutrition, increased motivation of students, development of instructions and introduction of advanced technologies).

Participants of the event will be able to get acquainted with J-PAL studies adapted to the priorities of the anti-poverty policies in Uzbekistan, study international experience in combating poverty and the implementation of best practices.

All media representatives and bloggers are invited to the event.

We ask everyone who desires to take part in the workshop to take an identity document with you and register through our employee via telegram.

PR Service, CERR