Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Daily life of people is always accompanied with enjoying a wide range of public services delivered by municipal organizations. One usually does not think how the systems of public transportation, gas, water, heating, electric power and waste management are administered unless they face to the need to collect various documents, certificates, permission and licenses from state bodies where everyone can be witness of situation of interaction, which is mainly based on paper document management, between state official and client.

Modernization of public services delivery to the individuals and legal entities has become one of the main areas for public sector reform. Many countries have already started to develop the programs to improve the public services delivery. In particular, these initiatives cover such aspects as streamlining procedures, ensure quality standards for services, become more customer-oriented service using multi-channel communication model. The primary purpose was to ensure easy access to the public services in close cooperation with local communities and private businesses. It is believed that this kind of initiatives will allow individuals and legal entities benefiting from the functions of the state agencies through the enhanced mechanisms of public service delivery and optimized operational processes. Thus it gives an opportunity to improve the quality, effectiveness and equal accessibility of public services throughout the country.

In Uzbekistan reforms in public administration system are based on introduction of gradual changes into the development policies of the country. For example, among the first efforts on administrative reform, there was a strong focus on transferring functions to local governments, as well as delegating certain social welfare functions to the community level (makhalla). Nowadays a special attention is given to improving the quality and effectiveness of the public services through elimination of cumbersome administrative procedures and duplicating functions of state authorities.

International experience on administrative reforms successfully demonstrates the advantages of applying functional review and capacity assessment of public sector organizations. It helps identify effectiveness of the public sector management system through the analysis of such challenges as: a) existence of excessive, not-relevant, overlapping and not equally distributed functions within the state organizations; b) complexity of administrative procedures; c) extent of discretion powers assigned to officials; d) transparency of public service delivery system; e) opportunities for external and internal oversight on administrative performances of public agencies.

Combining the research methods of functional review and capacity assessment, UNDP Local Governance Support Project (LGSP) in close cooperation with the Government of Uzbekistan and Khokimiyats of Djizak and Namangan regions - has conducted thorough analysis to identify major functional and quality gaps, which should be paid a special attention in improving the system of public service delivery. This task was carried out and completed by international consultants from Latvia and UNDP Bratislava Regional Center (BRC) together with close cooperation of national consultants.

The team of international and national consultants identified current processes and procedures of public service delivery to develop a set of recommendations on improving the mechanisms for providing public services, focusing on five most popular public services – retirement pension, child care social allowance, unemployment allowance, land cadastre and certification on absence of debts on payments for electric power consumption in Djizak and Namangan regions.

The functional review involved analysis of legislation of Uzbekistan, structured interviews, discussions with the representatives of public service providers, interviews with more than 70 civil servants regarding their functional responsibilities and self-assessment of organizational capacity.

The findings of the research and the recommendations of consulting team were presented during the specialized validation workshop on theme “Public Services Delivery in Uzbekistan: strengthening capacities of local governments”, which was held on 6th of July, 2011 in “Uchkuduk” Hall of “Poytakht” Business Center in Tashkent. The presentation of the research results on five local public services has served as a good starting point for discussions facilitated by Ms.Annie Demirjian, BRC Democratic Governance Practice Leader. The event has gathered the representatives of Cabinet of Ministries, Khokimiyat of Djizak and Namangan regions, organizations that provide above mentioned five public services in Djizak and Namangan regions, UNICEF and UNDP.

Azizkhon Bakhadirov, the member of the research team and Task manager on Legal issues of LGSP project said “One of the practical results of the functional review and capacity assessment is that it has allowed developing a set of practical recommendations for optimizing and simplifying the administrative procedures on local public services delivery system and capacity development of civil servants. In addition, it is planned that these services will be included into the list of public services, which will be provided by One-Stop-Shops of Djizak and Namangan cities”.

In general, the participants have agreed that the functional review and capacity assessment is a useful tool which should help the Government of Uzbekistan in streamlining public functions on service delivery taking into account cost-efficiency, effectiveness, coordination and transparency of government agencies.

As further follow-up actions, the participants of the event have recommended collecting the written comments of relevant state authorities mentiojned in the final report, to synergy the e-governance related recommendations into a broader strategy of the development of online public services, and implementing streamlined procedures for delivering public services at the One-Stop-Shops of Jizzakh and Namangan cities.