“Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review: Uzbekistan” (CPEIR) was prepared within the framework of the joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme, French Development Agency and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The CPEIR is a diagnostic tool consisting of three pillars, which collectively identify the extent to which climate change issues are integrated into the policy direction of the country, are supported by a strong institutional framework, and reflected in the Government budget.

The relevance of this tool is determined by Uzbekistan being one of the countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change, which predetermines the need to develop and implement a consistent climate policy. Recognizing the importance of climate change issues, in 1993 Uzbekistan has acceded the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in 2017 it has signed the Paris Agreement.

Within the framework of its commitments, the Government of Uzbekistan has undertaken consistent efforts to improve national policies and plans related to climate action. The strategic documents were adopted, including the Concept of Environmental Protection until 2030 and the Strategy for Green Economy Transition till 2030.

Among all, the New Uzbekistan Development Strategy for 2022-2026 also aims to ensure alignment of the national development objectives with climate action objectives. Of 100 high-level objectives that were stipulated in the Strategy, two objectives (Goal 24 and Goal 80) are directly related to climate change mitigation and adaptation issues.

The publication highlights that Uzbekistan can achieve a better progress in integration of climate change issues into the national policy through strengthening integration of climate change into development planning and budget setting processes in the country.

In this regard, a separate section of the publication is devoted to the analysis and climate change assessment of the State Budget expenditures.  There is proposed methodology for implementation of the assessment that reflects the specifics of the budget system in Uzbekistan. As the application of this methodology reveals, in 2020-2022 around 10-11% of the budget (around 2-3% of GDP) has been allocated to climate-positive activities. Over the same period, climate-negative expenditures have decreased from 0.9% to 0.6% of the budget (0.2-0.1% of GDP).

The publication concludes with presentation of the Climate Change Budget Integration Index (CCBII) assessment results. This assessment enabled identification of the level of integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies and implementation practices into the Public Financial Management system. In future it can serve as a baseline for progress evaluation in this regard.