Leyla Rasgeldiyeva
In the last ten years, Uzbekistan has undertaken large-scale reform efforts to modernize the country’s governance. The national Uzbekistan 2030 Strategy calls for the central government to decentralize more than 250 functions of the state from the central ministries in Tashkent to regional and district leaders.
In the country’s 9,168 mahallas (neighborhoods), the processes of decision making seem to be closer to ordinary citizens, thanks to initiatives such as Open Budget (Ochiq Budjet), Rural Infrastructure Development Program (RIDP) supported by the World Bank, and Mahalla Seven (Mahalla Yettiligi) local teams. But an examination of these reforms shows that they are not as they seem. The government is entrusting local authorities with the day to day running of their affairs, but it is denying them real political authority and financial autonomy.
These local development programs give a good physical result at the surface. The supply of clean drinking water to the population, according to the data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), has improved from 63% to 83% across the country, providing access to clean water for the first time for 7.7 million rural residents.
Meanwhile, the national poverty rate has declined from 8.9% to 5.8% with the social support provided by local mahalla offices. In the course of the RIDP, more than 900 projects were finished, which constructed 340 roads, repaired 220 electrical grids and renovated 140 schools in the local communities.
However, the numbers themselves without a description of the system they represent, is a misleading picture. These achievements are made possible because Tashkent provides funds to complete particular projects, rather than because local communities were empowered to govern themselves. Public policy is full of nuances of difference between deconcentration and decentralization.
Deconcentration is the transfer of heavy workloads and routine activities from the central offices to regional offices under the overall control of the central offices located in Tashkent. True decentralisation, however, enables locally elected leaders to make their own decisions, with their own funds and without having to ask the capital city leaders for permission.
Three clear structural reasons prevent Uzbekistan from achieving its decentralization goals. First of all, the regional governors (hokims) are appointed directly from the top and not elected by the local residents. Since a hokim’s fate is dependent on his ability to please his superiors in Tashkent, his day-to-day activities are focused on the central national goals rather than the actual desires of local people. If there are disagreements between the local and central needs, the appointed governor is likely to do what the capital says.
The OECD Observatory on Subnational Government Finance estimates that subnational government tax revenues in Uzbekistan are approximately 70% from transfers and grants from the central government. Local representative councils (Kengashes) were officially established apart from the office of the hokim in order to increase checks and balances. In reality, however, Kengashes have little control over local budgets and have limited analytical and technical capabilities to develop their own budget proposals or to effectively challenge executive decisions.
Third, there are a number of important local decisions that are still subject to the control of the central ministries in Tashkent. Local government departments are subject to “dual subordination”- they report to the local hokim and also to their central ministries.
Consequently, local governments have little flexibility in the number of staff, budgets, land use, and in implementing sectoral policies. This interdependent chain of responsibility can slow down decision making processes and make it more difficult for local governments to react promptly to the needs of the community.
International experience indicates potential solutions to the issues arising from over-centralization. The Village Law (No. 6/2014) was introduced in 2014 in Indonesia, which provides direct financial transfers (Dana Desa) to over 74,000 village governments from the national budget.
These funds provided a greater capacity for villages to respond to their own local needs such as road construction, clean water provision and local infrastructure development. The experience of Indonesia also indicates that funding is not sufficient. To make resources effective and useful to local communities, there needs to be citizen participation and transparent oversight, and direct financial support must be tied to these.
The question that arises from the experience of Uzbekistan is whether the country is really decentralizing or just deconcentrating administrative duties? Recent reforms have made government more responsive to the public, but true decentralisation needs more than just the delegation of tasks to local government.
It involves devolution of decision-making, financial resources and accountability to the local level. Uzbekistan can enhance local institutional capacity and empower local communities to contribute to their own development, thereby going beyond administrative deconcentration to create a system of governance that is truly responsive to its citizens.
The author is a scholar of International Relations with academic interests in global politics, diplomacy, and international security. She also has a strong interest in the current geopolitical developments and aims to make research and analytical writing a valuable tool for informed policy discussions.
