Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 6 December, Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan Aziz Voitov met with UNDP Resident Representative in Uzbekistan Matilda Dimovskaya.

During the meeting, the parties discussed key points on: the Program of Reforms and Priorities of the Ministry of Agriculture for 2023-2024 in accordance with the Strategy for the Development of Agriculture of Uzbekistan for 2020-2030; Awareness of UNDP strategic initiatives (ongoing and planned) in support of the green transition agenda of the government of Uzbekistan, with a special focus on the agricultural sector, including cooperation in the development of the Green Growth Strategy Framework, work in the Aral Sea region and the Ferghana Valley, the development of national adaptation plans, in including for the agricultural sector. They also discussed the status of ongoing joint projects of the Ministry of Agriculture and UNDP to ensure the effective contribution of initiatives to the political reform agenda in the country's agricultural sector.

“Our main task for today is to restructure the work of the state apparatus from the functions of administrative and statistical control towards the provision of advisory services and the provision of targeted support to agricultural producers. In the next two years, we plan to focus our work on several key aspects.

We welcome the UNDP project to support an inclusive transition to a green economy in the agri-food sector and the development of a “climate-smart” Uzbek system of agricultural knowledge and innovation. In the long term, we are striving to build a self-financing model for the work of the AKIS Center and I am convinced that the results of the UNDP project will lay a good foundation for this,” said Aziz Voitov, Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Uzbekistan.