The European Bureau of the Abdul Latif Jamil Anti-Poverty Action Laboratory (J-PAL Europe) named Uzbekistan the country of the month. J-PAL Europe twitted it on its official Twitter.
“In May, our attention shifted to Uzbekistan, where J-PAL Europe is exploring the possibilities of using evidence in the policy of combating poverty in Uzbekistan,” the European Bureau of J-PAL informed in a statement.
Since the beginning of the year, three countries – Italy, Germany and Spain – have been named as countries of the month by the J-PAL European Bureau.
For reference: J-PAL is a global anti-poverty research center. Created in 2003, based at MIT. It has 7 regional offices in leading universities in Europe, Africa, South and North America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia.
The core staff of J-PAL includes more than 400 specialists. It functions in close cooperation with about 300 affiliated professors around the world. During the entire existence of the laboratory, 1094 studies have been conducted in 91 countries.
The fight against poverty and the organization of social protection are at the center of attention of the state policy of Uzbekistan, where a lot of work has been done in this direction in the country over the past 5 years.
Uzbekistan has begun active work to combat poverty and is forming comprehensive approaches to overcome it. The reform program has been adjusted over the past two years to respond to the negative consequences caused by the pandemic. A comprehensive state policy to reduce poverty and strengthen social protection has also been accelerated due to external shocks.
Recall that in May last year, J-PAL, founded by Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, in cooperation with CERR, organized a seminar to assist in the development and testing of innovative approaches in cooperation with the Government of Uzbekistan to improve the effectiveness of state programs to combat poverty.
At this stage, J-PAL and CEКR are starting a study to assess the effectiveness of the first of the state programs aimed at combating poverty and their potential impact on ensuring the growth of real incomes of the population and reducing poverty.
Experts are considering the possibility of developing and implementing advanced tools for evaluating the effectiveness of such programs as “Every family is an entrepreneur” through the “Makhallabay” system and the activities of the “Ishga Marhamat” monocenters, including the effectiveness of labour migration programs.
Such a procedure of evaluating the effectiveness of government programs is being introduced for the first time in Uzbekistan, which will be an important step in the development of future programs and strategies aimed at simultaneously addressing many aspects of poverty.
For reference: In 2021, in the ranking of the best think tanks in Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Center for Economic Research and Reforms ranked 10th among the 63 best research and analytical institutes in the region. Accordingly, CERR rose by one line in comparison with last year, and improved the indicators of 2016 by three positions (at that time the Center took 13th place).
The Center for Economic Research was transformed into the Center for Economic Research and Reform in October 2019 on the twentieth anniversary of its formation. At the same time, new goals and objectives were approved, including conducting analytical and applied research in order to develop well-developed proposals on strategic directions for deepening socio-economic reforms, taking into account successfully tested practices in developed foreign countries.
Source: eureporter