With a view to further improving the system of promotion of employment and social protection the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Uzbekistan with the support of the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development is implementing a project on the development and piloting of an integrated social assistance office "Single Window".

Key objectives:

• Radical improvement of quality of public services in the area of labour and employment services and social protection of population, rendered by labour and employment authorities in places;

• Improving the access of population to public employment services and services of social protection by creating chains of integrated offices “Single window” and promoting modern information-communication technologies;

• Developing software applications in order to automatize the work process of integrated offices, training and increasing potential of employees.

Integrated office “Single window” will be rendering the following qualified and effective services to the population in the area of employment and social protection:

• Provision of complete and reliable information on issues of employment, including the availability of vacant working places, on legal issues in the area of labour and employment, on participation in specialized programs of employment (professional education, retraining, requalification, paid community works) and on social protection of unemployment citizens;

• Registration to give a legal status of unemployed and encourage participation in individual employment programs for unemployed.

• Provision of reliable information on measures in social protection of population and its separate categories, including types and conditions of social aid offered by the state, as well as contact details of relevant ministries and agencies dealing with such issues.

The implementation period of the project is 12-15 months, the budget – USD 450 000.

Ministry of labour held a meeting with the World Bank delegation

Tashkent, September 14, 2016

The Ministry of labour of the Republic of Uzbekistan held a meeting with representatives of the World Bank in Uzbekistan by the initiative of the latter on September 14, 2016.

The World Bank team members included:

Meriem Gray – Senior Communications Officer, Europe and Central Asia; Jennifer Shkabatur – Social Development Consultant; Nina Kolybashkina – Senior Social Development Specialist; Tsoy Irina – Communications Officer at Tashkent office.

The main purpose of visit is rendering assistance in extensive media coverage mostly in Internet and social networks of the work and progress achieved.

The World Bank delegation was fully informed about the structure, main tasks and PR work system of the Ministry.

The World Bank representatives noted that international community including diplomatic corps in Tashkent had recognized the progress achieved in implementation of international labour standards, ILO Conventions and Recommendations and other agreements with international financial institutions.

Nevertheless, much work lies ahead and World Bank agreed to support the initiative of Uzbekistan Government in implementing Plan of Activities on improvement the labour conditions, employment and social protection of agricultural workers for 2016 – 2018.

Priority cooperation areas, information campaign on elimination of the labour rights infringement as well as feedback mechanism operation during the cotton season were discussed at the meeting.

The same day, World Bank delegation visited the Call Center of the Ministry of labour.

During the visit, foreign guests were introduced to the work of call center, system of call procession on examples, projects of informing publicity, media documents for organizing public relations.

At the end of meeting, the World Bank team has noted productive work of the Ministry of labour and further readiness to provide required assistance.