Ministry of Innovative Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan in cooperation with UNDP in Uzbekistan on June 17, 2019 launched SDG Innovations and Governance Lab. It is created to improve public administration and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals through effective administrative reform.

The Republic of Uzbekistan is implementing a large-scale reform of the public administration system. The activities envisaged by the Strategy for the Further Development of Uzbekistan for 2017-2021, the Strategy for Innovative Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2019-2021 cover all spheres, aspects and forms of state participation in the management, regulation, coordination and promotion of the development of the country.

The process of developing and making decisions by the highest state authorities is complex, time consuming and requires a high degree of awareness of the current problems of economic and business development, civil society and political activity, as well as measures to eliminate these problems. The high rates of making  complex and, at the same time, accurate and targeted decisions are provided by the results of the enormous research and expert-analytical activities carried out in the preceding years by such domestic think tanks as Center for Economic Research (CER), Institute of Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research (IFMR), Institute for Social Research (ISR), Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies (ISRS), Institute for Monitoring the Formation of Civil Society (NIMFOGO) and others with support of international organizations.

As reforms are implemented and the institutional and legal environment changes, the need for higher government bodies, as well as ministries and departments, for expert and analytical support for their activities will increase. First of all, there will be an increase in demand for cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary research, which combines research methods from economic, political, institutional, social, psychological, environmental and other areas to obtain more accurate and tailored features of Uzbekistan policy, which, in turn, determines the need to establish an appropriate center for development analysis and state management.

In order to create a platform for carrying out the above interdisciplinary research and developing innovative ideas in public administration, the Ministry of Innovation Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan in cooperation with UNDP in Uzbekistan launches Innovations and Governance Lab for the Sustainable Development Goals.

The main goal of the laboratory is to study, test and introduce innovative approaches, methods and solutions in the public administration to improve the efficiency of planning processes, implementation and monitoring of management decisions, build capacities of civil servants in the field of governance innovations, as well as improving the quality and accessibility of public services for citizens and businesses.

The SDG Lab will perform the following tasks:

•        assist in the implementation of the Strategy for Innovative Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2019-2021;

•        Conducting and testing the results of applied research in the field of administrative reform, the introduction of innovative approaches and methods in public administration and the solution of topical social problems;

•        To pilot the use of distributed registry technologies (blockchain technology) in the public sector of Uzbekistan, including the provision of public services, registries and other types of interaction with citizens and business entities;

•        organization of brainstorming, opinion polls, dialogues, empirical research and other activities in order to test innovative management methods, including design thinking, behavioral psychology, evidence-based policy, data-based management, Agile and others;

•        Assistance in the development of human capital of Uzbekistan in the field of innovation development, including strengthening the competences of government agencies on the effective application of management innovations, advanced knowledge and technologies;

•        establishment and development of international relations of the Ministry of Innovation Development and other government agencies with foreign universities, think tanks, analytical structures, independent experts in the field of innovative development.

The opening ceremony was attended by representatives of the government, government organizations, the British Embassy in Tashkent, international organizations and the media.

At the end of the ceremony, the leaders of the Ministry of Innovation Development and the UNDP in Uzbekistan called on government agencies, international organizations, NGOs, the expert community and the media to closely cooperate and actively participate in the projects and activities of the Lab.