Since 2016, the Government of Uzbekistan has undertaken a series of structural reforms aimed at revitalising key sectors, introducing market mechanisms in the economy, reducing the number of public sector companies through privatisation, streamlining their supervision by the State and improving the performance of public enterprises destined to remain in the state fold. These challenges imply development of a comprehensive and well-designed State policy towards the SOEs. This work has been initiated and is still in progress. Indeed, the SOE governance has undergone numerous institutional changes in Uzbekistan. As per now, the institutional framework includes 2 main entities: (i) the SOE Department of the Ministry of Economy and of Finance and (ii) UzSAMA (Uzbek Agency for Management of State Assets).

The SOE Department was created in August 2023 with the aim at managing of a portfolio of the strategic SOE that will remain under the State ownership.

UzSAMA  manages a portfolio of more than 700 smaller and non-critical state-owned companies and more than 2,000 companies, including regional ones in which the State is a shareholder, but with a very clear vocation to try to lead them towards privatisation.

In the midst of frequent institutional reorganizations, the Uzbek State needs to strengthen its capacity to implement the national green economy policy within public companies, and to reinforce the internationally recognised principles of good governance within pilot companies, based on the OECD guidelines and respecting the social and environmental responsibility of companies

Technical assistance context

To support the efforts of Uzbekistan on green transition, a wider green economy public policy loan program was designed and financed by the AFD. This five-year program (2022-26) consists in: (i) an in-depth policy dialogue on the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the Green Growth Strategic Framework (GGSF), (ii) a series of three concessional budget support loans disbursed upon completion of pre-agreed reform targets and (iii) a technical cooperation project funded by dedicated grants.

Thus, the Technical Assistance entrusted to Expertise France is implemented in the framework of the larger Green Economy Technical Assistance Program (GETAP) financed by the European Union that cover the remaining years of implementation of the Green Economy Public Policy Loan Program (2023-26) and will support national authorities in delivering on key milestones of the GGSF. In addition, it is a logical extension of a previous TA carried out by Expertise France and funded by AFD’s own resources. Expertise France’s part of the GETAP comprises the following components:

·                    Institutional support to the MoEF on GGSF operationalization and coordination, including support to the Centre for Green Economy Projects;

·                    Implementation of the MRV system;

·                    Green Public Investment;

·                    Green Budget;

·                    Fossil fuel subsidies phasing out;

·                    Environmental taxation;

·                    Sustainable Public Procurement;

·                    Sustainable governance of SOE

In the previous phase of the TA three deliverables were provided for the latter component: (i) the updated version of the green SOEs roadmap, (ii) decision creating the working group on the roadmap implementation, (iii) confirmation of two pilot entities.

The current assignment is a logical continuation of the work done previously.