Uzbekistan significantly improved its position in the prestigious international ranking

In 2022 on September 23, the results of the 2021 results of the Worldwide Governance Indicators were announced.

Worldwide Governance Indicators have been evaluated annually by the World Bank since 1996 on the level of governance quality in countries. The assessment is carried out in the areas of “Political Stability and Absence of violence / terrorism”, “Government Effectiveness”, “Regulatory Quality”, “Voice and Accountability”, “Rule of law” and “Control of Corruption”. Evaluation of Uzbekistan in this rating is an important factor in forming a positive image of our country in the international community.
A total of 30 information sources are used in the formation of management of quality indicators. Comparing to the previous year, in 2022 16 information sources took part in assessing Uzbekistan’s mark (The Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Asian Development Bank, US State Department, Bertelsmann Foundation and many other organizations). In the assessment of Uzbekistan, the data of the “Political Risk Services International Country Risk Guide” was used as a newly added source of information.
According to the results of the updated rating, the results of Uzbekistan in all 6 indicators have increased significantly.
In particular, in the “Government Effectiveness” indicator, Uzbekistan took 116th place among 208 countries, improving its previous result by 22 places.
In the “Political Stability and Absence of violence / terrorism” indicator, our result increased by 19 places and was recorded in 130th place.
The place of Uzbekistan in the direction of “Regulatory Quality” increased significantly by 33 places and took 144th place.
The result of Republic of Uzbekistan in the indicator “Control of Corruption” has improved by 15 places and is recorded at the 161st place.
Uzbekistan was ranked 168th (+13 places comparing to 2020) in the direction of “Rule of law”, and 182nd place (+12 places comparing to 2020) according to the indicator “Voice and Accountability”.
The reforms carried out in recent years served to increase the place of Uzbekistan by 33 positions in the Regulatory Quality” indicator.
In particular, in order to improve the quality of normative creativity, the Institute of Regulatory Impact Assessment was introduced. The types of legal expertise have been expanded through anti-corruption and gender-legal expertise.
In this regard, at the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, more than 4,000 obsolete documents were canceled using the regulatory guillotine method in the last few years. As a result, the current legislation was reduced by 10 percent.
In accordance with the development strategy of New Uzbekistan for
2022-2026, the next goal is to reduce the "regulatory burden", reduce the number of legislative documents, systematize the regulatory legal documents regulating the activities of state bodies.
Furthermore, codification of legal documents is underway. In particular, the Law “On Investments and Investment Activities” was adopted, which combines 3 laws and more than 50 by-laws. In addition, the Law “On Licensing, Permitting and Notification Procedures” was adopted and more than 100 legal documents were abolished.
In addition, work on compacting the legal framework is being carried out systematically. In particular, the Ministry of Justice has developed the project “Business Code”, which integrates 9 existing laws, 2 new draft laws and more than 10 legal documents. Just like that in order to reduce the bureaucracy, this draft code envisages that the number of actual inspections in business activities will be reduced by 2 times.
The improvement of Uzbekistan’s position in the “Government Effectiveness” indicator can be attributed to administrative reforms.
In this regard, in the development strategy of New Uzbekistan for 2022-2026, “Implementation of a compact, professional, fair, high-performance state management system”, “Condensation of the administrative apparatus and optimization of work processes in the state management system” and “Organization of the state civil service system based on modern standards” are defined.

Abdulkarim ZOKIROV
Officer of the Department for work
with international ratings and indices
of the Ministry of Justice of the
Republic of Uzbekistan