Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- UNICEF jointly with Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan have successfully completed the training programme aimed to improve public spending across child-sensitive social sectors.

The training, which targets staff members of the Ministry of Finance and other line ministries of the social sector such as education, social protection and health, was closed by Mr. Akhadbek Khaydarov, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan & Mr. Munir Mammadzade, UNICEF Representative in Uzbekistan. They have facilitated certificate awarding ceremony and greeted the participants by delivered inspiring speech and highlighted the importance of the training for securing adequacy, effectiveness, efficiency and transparency of the state budget spending in education, health and social protection, which are essential for wellbeing of children.

During the training, participants had a chance to put the theoretical knowledge and skills directly in practice by accomplishing case studies on: 1)Social protection, that considered introduction of the maternity benefits that are to be funded by State budget; 2) Education - ensuring accessibility of primary/public schools for children in remote areas; and 3) Healthcare – increasing the immunization coverage of children up to 14 years old with 12 types of vaccines. 

Importantly, the training programme supports the government of Uzbekistan in implementing number of measures to reform the public financial management system as part of the approved Strategy for improving the public financial management system of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2020-2024. Successful implementation of these measures requires the availability of human resources capacity with a set of necessary knowledge and skills. 

The training comprehensively covered principles of budgeting and public financial management systems. It consists of two modules and includes topics such as setting targets and identifying the relevant indicators to meeasure,  linking them to the budget, program budgeting, analytical methods for budgeting for children, costing, assessing and comparing the costs and benefits of various options for sectoral development strategies, and measuring the effectiveness etc. The training will combine lectures, discussions, individual work, group activities, etc., and provides ample opportunity for case studies and practical exercises.

Programme participants have gained additional knowledge in program budgeting - planning, execution and monitoring of public spending on health, education and social protection, focused on improving the results necessary to create a positive environment for children.

Worth noting that at the end of training, based on the topics covered during training, participants discussed and proposed the specific Capstone project areas, that they will work on in the next stages. Here UNICEF will provide coaching/mentoring to the training participants to undertake the budgetary analysis of public spending on child-sensitive social sectors and using various value for money analysis and other analytical tools, to come up with the recommendations on how to improve sufficiency, efficiency, effectiveness and equitability of these spending. In addition, UNICEF and Ministry of Finance will continue working together to develop instruments/templates/tools to be used by the social sector ministries to undertake value for money analysis for evidence-based budgetary enquiries.