Uzbekistan Country Gender Assessment: Update

participation in the sector and in Uzbekenergo operations.
• 
Consider sufficient allocations for Gap implementation during project planning, 
including funds allocated for capacity development and outreach interventions.
• 
Use an Uzbekenergo-led skills-mapping exercise to redress the risk of job loss, 
including among women and other employees, and serve as basis for staff retraining 
and education.
• 
Support efficiency studies within Gap interventions to measure the reduction in 
women’s work burden that results when sufficient electricity allows the use of labor-
saving devices.
• 
Include home businesses as a specific category of Uzbekenegro support for revisions 
in electricity tariffs, considering the potential vulnerability of households running such 
businesses.
• 
In collaboration with the WCU and other state and non-state stakeholders, support 
outreach interventions to increase the key nationwide supervising entity.
• 
advise Uzbekenergo to synchronize the criteria and norms for streetlighting, especially 
considering the specificity of rural and urban areas, and identify the key supervising 
entity nationwide.
• 
Further encourage made by Uzbekenergo to support its staff in obtaining higher 
technical education, with equal opportunities for female and male staff.
• 
Support joint strategies by Uzbekenergo, the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special 
education, and other relevant stakeholders to introduce a 30% quota for young girls’ 
admission to technical universities with energy specialties.
• 
encourage discussions between adB and Uzbekenergo management to identify the 
barriers to making the Nuristan Community Center operational.
• 
Support tpp management’s information campaigns announcing the results of regular 
tests of steam and gas engine emissions, to overcome the people’s concerns about 
potential impact on morbidity in the tpp neighborhood.

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Mainstreaming Gender in ADB Operations, by Sector
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B. Water Supply and Sanitation
1. Context
Uzbekistan lies in one of the most arid regions in Central asia.
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the country inherited a 
well-developed water supply and sanitation (WSS) infrastructure, but the system is outdated, 
damaged by corrosion, operating inefficiently, and is badly in need of repair, not operating 
efficiently. there is little continuity in water services, and insufficient pressure in pipelines. the 
urban and rural areas differ in access to safe drinking water. In regions deficient in drinking and 
irrigation water (certain districts in Kashkadarya, Jizzakh, Syrdarya, Khorezm, tashkent regions, 
and the Republic of Karakalpakstan), the situation can be challenging. For example, reports 
on the Western Uzbekistan Water Supply System development project state that 35% of 
households in Karakalpakstan have an acute and growing need for drinking water
.
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Most of the rural population in the surveyed areas relies on water from shallow well pumps, 
which is limited, seasonal, and, for the most part, irregular and of extremely poor quality. 
a few households pay for private boreholes and supply water to their neighbors. Users incur a 
variety of costs to cope with poor service. For example,1.5% of households in Karakalpakstan 
buy drinking water from private water purification facilities (average cost = SUM10,000 
per 10 liters). Five percent of households purchase water from water carriers (average cost 
of delivery = SUM10,000–SUM20,000 per cubic meter), and 85% of households buy 
containers for water. associated expenditures are often equally high in absolute terms and 
are not subsidized. However, spending on water for drinking and domestic purposes is rather 
small for all surveyed households in Karakalpakstan, totaling about 5% of average household 
expenditures. piped water, as well as vendor services (1%) and bottled water (1%) (footnote 78). 
table 4 shows the rural and urban dynamics of accessing safe drinking water and pipe sewerage 
systems in 2014–2016.
2. Government Commitments
Under the development Strategy for 2017–2021, improved access to clean drinking water 
is a government priority, to be implemented through the national reorganization of sector 
institutions, financial and cost recovery reform, the construction of new water supply systems, 
and the introduction of modern, cost-effective, and efficient technologies.
In 2015–2017, the government endorsed legal provisions to transform the country’s water 
supply.
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State unitary enterprises (Suvokava) in each province were reorganized and charged 
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UN economic Commission for europe. 2015.