[{"bbox": [96, 153, 1134, 485], "category": "Text", "text": "changes, including a sharp rise in the fertility rate, decrease in contraceptive use and persisting issue of early\npregnancy. The recent demographic trends in Uzbekistan reinforce women's traditional role of childbearers and\ncaregivers and effectively reduce women's participation in the labour force. Female labour force participation\ncontinues to decrease with each additional child, while equal participation in the economy would raise\nUzbekistan's GDP by 29% and potentially lift 700,000 people out of poverty. At the same time, Uzbekistan\nwitnesses the resurgence of traditional patriarchic values that determine rigid and often harmful social norms and\nstrict gender roles for women and men. This view of the society and the household limits women's freedom of\nchoice and access to opportunities; perpetuates discrimination and intolerance, especially discrimination against\nwomen, and is one of the main drivers of inequality in Uzbekistan. The sharp increase in fertility rate and early\npregnancies, effectively hinders women's economic participation and empowerment and has a detrimental effect\non Uzbekistan's economic development as well."}, {"bbox": [96, 487, 1134, 698], "category": "Text", "text": "The Action will address the following gaps: (1) Absence of a mechanism to challenge and address the harmful social norms and gender stereotypes affecting women's empowerment and economic participation; (2) Lack of available and disaggregated data on access to and attitudes towards sexual and reproductive health and rights; (3) Lack of systematic access to evidence-based and unbiased information on sexual and reproductive health, contraception and to family planning services; (4) Lack of support for parents and other caregivers to infuse key normative principles such as gender equality and inclusion to transform power structures in future generations; (5) Limited availability of socio-emotional skills and digital and STEM skills programmes for adolescent girls."}, {"bbox": [96, 701, 1134, 1033], "category": "Text", "text": "To address these gaps, the proposed Action aims to address gender stereotypes and harmful social norms and promote women's equal participation in the economy and labour force. To achieve this, the Action will work on three pillars (SOs): SO 1 focusing on Women's Economic Empowerment and targeting women, adolescent girls, including girls with disabilities, institutions and private sector entities to create an environment where women acquire the skills and access the support they need to achieve economic empowerment; SO2 focusing on tackling gender stereotypes and harmful social norms along with family planning, where the project activities will focus on changing the perception on gender stereotypes and harmful social norms, including by working with community and religious leaders, and promote access to quality pre-marriage and family planning counselling along with gender-transformative parenting; SO3 focusing on ensuring families access to modern family planning resources, by developing a logistics management system to handle the distribution of family planning resources in accordance with women's expressed needs."}, {"bbox": [85, 1096, 322, 1127], "category": "Section-header", "text": "2 RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [85, 1161, 234, 1188], "category": "Section-header", "text": "2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [96, 1253, 1134, 1598], "category": "Text", "text": "In late 2016, the Government of Uzbekistan (GoU) launched a comprehensive set of reforms to transition to modernize the country and open it up to the world. The reforms encompass all spheres of the society and its functioning, from economic policy to social protection, environment and climate change, promoting human rights and improving relations with neighboring countries. The GoU has also undertaken efforts to address sectoral challenges and bottlenecks, taking steps to improve basic health services for the population, introducing new and expanding the existing social protection measures, investing in education and employment programs with a particular focus on women and girls. In 2019, Uzbekistan was declared country of the year by The Economist, which argued that \"no other country traveled so far\". Since then, Uzbekistan has been gradually privatizing assets and attracting foreign investments, and its start-up and tech scenes have been developing rather quickly. At the Tashkent International Investment Forum 2024, Uzbekistan has emerged as a premier business destination and unveiled plans to position itself as a regional IT hub with the Tashkent IT Park already being the largest IT hub in Central Asia. The Government of Uzbekistan has set ambitious economic and social development goals. It aims to reduce poverty by half by 2026 and reach an upper middle-income country status by 2030."}, {"bbox": [1034, 1680, 1143, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 4 of 23"}]