The key policy priority for the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan is to increase the social effectiveness of reforms implemented in the country.

We believe that Uzbekistan has sufficient natural, material and labor resources to ensure the level and quality of life of the population in the medium term not lower than in the medium developed countries of the world.

In the opinion of our party representatives, people who need targeted social protection and social support should first of all feel the improvement in the level and quality of life. These are pensioners, people with disabilities, children left without parental care, single elderly, women with large families, people who do not have regular job and income, and other vulnerable segments of the population whose income level is insufficient to satisfy their primary necessities of life.

We are deeply convinced that ensuring decent living conditions for these people is one of the main factors for further strengthening the country’s situation of social stability and civil harmony as the most important conditions for ensuring sustainable socio-economic development.

That is why the foundation of the party’s political position is the social priorities of the country’s economic and socio-political development. As the main medium-term political goal, the party sets itself the task of achieving the formation of the foundations of a social democratic state in Uzbekistan by 2030.

The solution to this problem, firstly, guarantees wellbeing for all, an income level sufficient to fully meet the priority needs of life, including well-maintained housing, uninterrupted provision of reliable and sustainable energy sources, natural gas and drinking water, balanced healthy nutrition, qualitative education and medical service.

Secondly, the formation of such a state means affirmation in all spheres of social justice and social equality. This is not only equality of rights, but also equal opportunities for everyone to exercise these rights, regardless of social status, property status and income level.

Thirdly, it is social democracy, which ensures the participation of all, including vulnerable segments of the population, in the preparation, public examination and public discussion of draft laws and other decisions of state bodies that affect the social wellbeing of the population.

This goal is not achieved in one day. It provides for the phased solution of a number of interrelated economic, social, socio-political problems. The People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan in its Pre-election program proposes to take the next twelve practical steps over the next five years towards achieving this goal.

Step 1. We consider it necessary to achieve the practical implementation of the constitutional norm, which establishes that pensions, benefits, and other types of social assistance cannot be lower than the officially established subsistence level.

To this end, our parliamentary faction will make efforts to ensure legislative consolidation of the generally accepted definition in the international community of a living wage based on the cost of the consumer basket, which ensures full satisfaction of the vital needs of each person.

Step 2. Our party considers it necessary that state guarantees are legislatively guaranteed and practically ensured for every person to receive the vital amount of social services free of charge.

This will guarantee the realization of the constitutionally enshrined rights of every citizen to education, healthcare and medical care, housing, social security, participation in cultural life and qualified legal assistance. Including for low-income and other vulnerable segments of the population.

Step 3. The party proposes to take targeted measures to ensure the availability of goods and services of daily demand for the low-income population.

For these purposes, according to the party, it is necessary to legislatively consolidate the list of goods and services of important social significance and determine the state regulation of prices and tariffs for relevant goods and services.

We believe that this issue should be addressed not only by establishing fixed prices for certain groups of goods and services. The main direction here should become the implementation of targeted regional investment programs for the accelerated development in each of the regions of a network of manufacturing enterprises producing food and consumer goods. Which naturally entails the formation of a healthy competitive environment and, as a result, stabilization of prices in the domestic consumer market.

Along with this, on the basis of progressive international experience, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan proposes to take measures for stimulating volunteer activities aimed at developing a network of social stores for selling necessary goods and food for low-income people at affordable prices.

Step 4. Our parliamentary faction initiates the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and will achieve the harmonization of national legislation with UN approved “Standard Rules for Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities”.

At the same time, the party intends to achieve their practical implementation in all regions and towns and in all spheres of society in the coming period by parliamentary, deputy and public control.

Step 5. The party proposes to take effective measures to overcome the monopoly of the main suppliers of communal services, which is one of the main factors of technical backwardness, low profitability, a high level of loss of energy and material resources and, as a result, an increase in the price burden on consumers.

Our party believes that with the emergence of new highly effective and reliable technologies in this area, the issue of revising the legislative norms that classify the main providers of public utilities as “natural monopolies” has become urgent. At the same time, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan proposes to legislatively fix the standards for the formation of prices and tariffs for communal services and housing maintenance services and the marginal level of profitability of organizations – providers of relevant services. This will ensure transparency in setting tariffs for communal services and eliminate cases of overstating them in order to cover unproductive losses of suppliers.

We also propose in the next five years to ensure the practical implementation of regional investment programs to create a network of modern autonomous systems of providing the population with inexpensive electricity, heating and hot water supply in both cities and rural areas.

Step 6. The party proposes, drawing on the experience gained in this direction, to ensure the expansion of construction of affordable housing for vulnerable groups of the population.

As a specific goal in this matter, for the next five years, the party proposes to provide social housing for all women in difficult social conditions who need to improve their living conditions, low-income mothers raising children in single-parent families, and graduates of charity houses.

Step 7. Our party, represented by its parliamentary faction, intends to take the initiative to legislatively consolidate the list of compulsory medical services provided free of charge in all medical institutions, regardless of their form of ownership and sources of financing.

In particular, we consider it necessary in the coming period to provide a practical solution to the issue of organizing an annual free medical examination using high-tech medical services for low-income families, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups of the population.

Step 8. According to the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, it is necessary to ensure unconditional observance of the principle of social justice in providing benefits to people in need for the purchase of medicines, prosthetics and other medical and social assistance.

At the same time, attention should be paid to the provision of medical care and the provision of medicines and medical supplies to pensioners, persons with disabilities, low-income families, people in charity houses Muruvvat, Sakhovat, and other vulnerable groups of the population, as well as development of networks and activities of social pharmacies.

In this regard, the party, based on progressive international experience, will, through its parliamentary faction, take the initiative to include specific procedural mechanisms for implementing public private partnerships and social entrepreneurship in the provision of social services for vulnerable groups in the current legislation.

Step 9. In the coming period, we intend to ensure equal opportunities for all segments of the population to receive qualitative preschool, secondary and higher education, including professional education and advanced training, in all education institutions, regardless of their form of ownership and sources of financing.

Step 10. Attaching great importance to further strengthening the public status of teachers and doctors, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan proposes to legislatively enforce standards that provide reliable protection for the honor, dignity, business reputation and safety of healthcare and educational workers.

We are also for the creation of a system of benefits and incentives to attract experienced highly qualified specialists to work in medical and educational institutions located in remote and inaccessible rural areas. This will significantly expand the access of rural people to qualitative education and medical care.

Step 11. Defining its priorities in the field of employment, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan considers it feasible in the next five years to ensure a double increase in productive employment of the able-bodied population in stable jobs with a wage level not less than 50 percent higher than the cost of living.

For achieving this in practice, the party proposes to stimulate the practical implementation of regional programs of accelerated development of high-tech enterprises for the production of industrial and agricultural products at the expense of local budgets and private investments.

Step 12. The party proposes to legislatively enshrine specific mechanisms for conducting mandatory public consultation, public discussion and public examination of draft normative-legal acts affecting the social wellbeing of the population.

We consider it important on this basis to ensure that not a single law, not a single decision of state bodies that significantly change the order and level of targeted social protection of vulnerable segments of the population is adopted without obtaining appropriate public consent.

The People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan also proposes to introduce modern methods of social diagnostics into the activities of state bodies, which provide proactive identification and effective solution of problems affecting the social wellbeing of the population.

Offering these twelve steps, the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan believes that their practical implementation in the next five years will become an important factor in the effective implementation of the key priority of the Development Strategy – ensuring the welfare of the entire people of the country and each individual family based on sustainable economic growth.

Ulugbek INOYATOV,

Chairman of the Central Council of the

People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan.