The goal of the EGED Programme is to improve the effectiveness, accountability and transparency of economic policy delivery on reform priorities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
www.eged-ca.org
Intended outcome
Subnational economic growth and jobs
Data-driven planning. The EGED helped design
- a standardized set of cross-cutting indicators for development planning at jamoat and district levels, and
- an algorithm of planning processes linking local priorities with budget and investment needs and monitoring. The programme is catalysing a scalable local development planning change.
Linking planning to growth. To demonstrate the impact of data-driven planning on local growth, the programme co-invested in
Employment. Through 23 job fairs in 12 districts across the country, the programme reached
Business licensing, permits and inspections administration
Through the EGED funding, the World Bank team conducted an in-depth Business Licenses and Inspection Maturity Assessment.
The assessment mapped institutional roles, reviewed the inspections management system, identified service-delivery bottlenecks, and recommended KPIs and improvement in institutional capacity and operating practices. The programme will help reduce regulatory burden on business and make the G2B services more transparent.
Export support pilot: Access to global markets through e-commerce
The EGED programme funded the initiative
E-GATE: Elevating Global Access Through E-commerce in Central Asia to open new markets for Central Asian producers through B2B online trading.
In 2024, EGED Programme funded the first International Conference on Enhancing Global Access through Electronic Commerce in Dushanbe, which brought together Central Asian government officials and businesses, including Amazon, Alibaba, Lenovo, Coursera, VISA, Uzum Group, and the Universal Postal Union.
Stronger Public Finance Management (PFM)
The programme supported 4th PEFA cycle in Tajikistan. For the first time, the Government of Tajikistan will assess how PFM systems perform in subnational (PEFA Subnational), climate (PEFA Climate), and gender (PEFA Gender) dimensions. The PEFA findings will shape the Government of Tajikistan Public Finance Management Reform Action Plan 2027–2030.
Extractives sector transparency
Within the regional extractive sector transparency project, the EGED helps Tajikistan to advance contract and license transparency through
- a legal analysis of disclosure barriers,
- an inventory of active mining contracts and licenses,
- training for government and private sector in contracts and license disclosure, and
- an upgraded national EITI portal.
Targeted Social Assistance reform (TSA)
Policy revision. The EGED helped the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MoHSP), the Ministry of Finance and Statistics Agency revise the TSA by
- improving the targeting of TSA assistance,
- doubling the TSA cash allowance to TJS 800/family,
- x4 times increase of the budget spend on TSA,
- a top-up cash for children under 16 (TJS 150) for households with two or more PWDs. The reform expected to lift more than 100,000 people out of poverty.
Monitoring. Through EGED, civil society and media have built capability to monitor the TSA delivery. Local CSOs (i) identified gaps in TSA implementation through conducting Third-Party Monitoring in Khatlon, DRS, Sughd, and GBAO, (ii) reported the gaps to the central/local governments and NDC Secretariat,
- reached over
- worked with MoHSP to embed civil society monitoring of TSA delivery in the 2024-2026 TSA State Programme.
Monitoring and measuring wellbeing
Poverty and middle-class measurement. Revision of methodologies to measure poverty and middle class done through EGED support, helps re-calculate the national poverty line and middle-class per international practice, and informs the government policy to expand the middle class.
The government has acknowledged that the measurement methodologies were important for the Mid-Term Development Programme, and in connecting targets with policies on human capital, private sector development, productive employment, etc. The methodology also works as a baseline for the 2030 target of the government to increase the middle-class by 50%. The methodology became a basis against which the progress can be measured.
Poverty and Equity Assessment explored if economic growth in Tajikistan benefits all and what drives inequality. A set of recommendations made to the Government of Tajikistan to improve structural transformation and overreliance on remittances, reversal of jobless growth in private sector, social support to help leverage human development, and access to quality education.
The CODI Assessment (Core Systems Diagnostic Instrument) of social protection system identified the strengths and weaknesses across policy, institutional arrangements, delivery mechanisms, financing, and coordination. Four clusters of recommendations made to the Government of Tajikistan to improve the 2024-2026 Social Protection Strategy Action Plan and inform the next phase of social protection reform.
Listening to Tajikistan (L2T): Since 2020, the EGED funds the Listening to Tajikistan (Listening2Tajikistan: Survey of Wellbeing) implemented by the World Bank. A monthly survey of 2,500 households across the country to understand public perceptions of wellbeing, reforms, migration, employment, access to public services, household income, and food security. To date, L2T helped inform over seven government policies. Interactive L2T dashboard open to public since summer 2025 (https://l2t.datamaven.ai/).
Country Gender Assessment identified disparities in economic opportunities between women and men. More than 20 policy recommendations to address gaps were put forward. The assessment fed into minimizing the list of banned jobs for women.
Protecting space for civil society, building resilience
The EGED supported the introduction of 30% membership quota for civil society organizations in the Interagency Working Groups (IWG) of the National Development Council (NDC) – the national platform chaired by the President to monitor the delivery of the National Development Strategy 2030.
Through EGED, CSOs performed monitoring of the employment and social protection KPIs of the Med-Term Development Programme 2021-2025 in half of the country’s districts. The EGED designed and launched a Platform Participation Index (PPI) – a localised mechanism to measure inclusiveness, transparency, and responsiveness of public-private dialogue platforms.
Using data to strengthen accountability
The EGED built data use capacity of a dedicated
(text and visual) and analytical articles on TSA, social protection, tax reforms, productive employment, expansion of the middle-class, and government social services procurement were broadcasted on state television and published on social media, reaching an audience of about 4,000 000. Seven Tavozun Press Club sessions supported through EGED offered journalists (i) better access to information on select government economic policies, and (ii) open space to engage with public officials.
CSO financial sustainability
The EGED supports CSOs to become financially resilient by
- tailored Social Entrepreneurship Pre-Acceleration Programme (SEPP) training and blended financing to CSOs, and
- policy advocacy for tax reliefs.
The policy advocacy resulted in three amendments to the Tax Code: (i) income tax exemption for organizations with at least 50% PWD employees, and property tax exemption for similar organizations using real estate for core functions, (ii) simplified tax regime eligibility for social entrepreneurs meeting the PWD employment and payroll thresholds, and (iii) first ever Social Entrepreneurship Law.
CSO Contributions to Development in Central Asia
Pillar 1
Beneficiary partners:
Pillar 2
(2021 – 2025)
(2025 – 2026)
Beneficiary partners:
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Implementor
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Contacts
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Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) / British Embassy Dushanbe |
Media
