[{"bbox": [97, 153, 1133, 234], "category": "Text", "text": "The proposed Action is designed with a rights-based approach to public services to promote the realisation of the basic, social and economic rights of citizens in rural areas, including those of women, children and youth, elderly, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups."}, {"bbox": [97, 259, 1133, 366], "category": "Text", "text": "Participatory planning systems in local governments (envisaged under pillar 4) to ensure that the public service delivery system addresses the most pressing needs of people in the regions, especially of women, children and youth, elderly, and persons with disabilities in rural and remote areas is also considered as a cross-cutting issue, which is grounded in the human rights-based approach."}, {"bbox": [97, 392, 1133, 551], "category": "Text", "text": "The proposed Action will contribute to the MIP Priority Area 1 Effective Governance and Digital Transformation, with the objective of supporting Uzbekistan's transition to a pluralist democratic system through support to the rule of law, universal values of human rights, a flourishing civil society and elimination of all forms of discrimination, especially gender-related. It will support the work of the government in accelerating legislative reforms, improving the quality of regulations and reducing the regulatory burden. The EU aims also at supporting national initiatives to advance awareness of legal rights, to expand legal education and literacy."}, {"bbox": [97, 582, 195, 608], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Disability"}, {"bbox": [97, 609, 1133, 769], "category": "Text", "text": "As per OECD Disability DAC codes identified in section 1.1, this action is labelled as D1. This implies that NGOs and CSOs protecting the rights and interests of people with disabilities and organisations of persons with disabilities will be one of the main stakeholders of the activities. They will be involved in designing the specific activities that will be informed by the vital interests of people with disabilities related to decision-making and participatory democracy. Implemented mechanisms and tools will always prioritise opportunities for convenience and applicability from the point of view of the limited capability of such people."}, {"bbox": [97, 799, 343, 826], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Reduction of inequalities"}, {"bbox": [97, 827, 1133, 1254], "category": "Text", "text": "While the Government's commitment to continuing reforms is demonstrably strong, it faces the challenges of increasing inter-regional inequalities and a wide urban-rural poverty gap. Almost half of the population lives in rural areas. With a rapidly growing population, Uzbekistan is struggling to reduce inequalities efficiently, especially gender-based inequalities and the urban-rural divide, and to provide employment for the youth entering the labour market. According to official statistics, the poverty rate in Uzbekistan for 2021 is 17%, while the employment rate reached 67%, representing the ratio of the number of employed population to the working age population in line with the World Bank methodology. Meanwhile, uneven distribution of population income in Uzbekistan based on the results of sample surveys of households equals 0.273 (Gini coefficient). The government also initiated a number of reforms on gender equality and women's empowerment, which have improved Uzbekistan's rankings in several international indexes in this domain. Currently, the country's Gender Development Index (GDI) value is 0.944, placing it in group 3 (medium equality), while its Gender Inequality Index (GII) value is 0.227, ranking it at 56 out of 170 countries in 2021. This data shows that Uzbekistan is close to attaining gender equality in education (enrolment, educational attainment and literacy) and health (sex ratio at birth and healthy life expectancy). However, gender inequalities in daily life are still persistent and need to be addressed accordingly."}, {"bbox": [97, 1294, 210, 1320], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Democracy"}, {"bbox": [97, 1321, 1133, 1548], "category": "Text", "text": "The implementation of the proposed action will eventually contribute to coherent and strategic support to democracy and human rights, CSOs, and peace, stability and conflict prevention, and will contribute to the strengthening of the democratic institutions of Uzbekistan. In particular, transformation of institutional, legal, and regulatory frameworks of back offices involved in service delivery will increase the transparency of government actions, contribute to the fight against corruption and bring the state closer to the people. Transformation of the local governance system to ensure responsiveness, accountability and better operation of regional and local institutions functioning as back offices will ensure the involvement of civil society, as well as ordinary citizens into the decision-making process, thus fostering participatory democracy."}, {"bbox": [97, 1595, 487, 1622], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Conflict sensitivity, peace and resilience"}, {"bbox": [1027, 1681, 1143, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 14 of 35"}]