Experience of ASI and Uzbekistan can become an example of inter-sectoral cooperation for Central Asian countries

Svetlana Chupsheva, Director General of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI), and Laziz Kudratov, First Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade and Head of the Agency for Strategic Development (ASD) of Uzbekistan, met in Tashkent to discuss future cooperation between ASI and ASD. It includes the introduction of investment standards, personnel training practices, and the development of the Boiling Point network of collaborative spaces. The experience of such work can be useful for other Central Asian countries, believes Svetlana Chupsheva.

"Our task is to develop common standards and methodology for assessing the investment potential of regions, training as well as find the best solutions and practices, and train the management teams of the regions. I think it will put a spin on the partnership between Russia and Uzbekistan, as well as in the development of favorable conditions for doing business. This experience can be useful to other Central Asian countries. We have already signed an agreement with colleagues from Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan has also shown interest in this work format," said Svetlana Chupsheva.

The road map approved by the memorandum of cooperation between ASI and the ASD of Uzbekistan outlines 15 areas of interaction. According to Laziz Kudratov, two formats of Boiling Points are now being actively developed – the university and the city.

"We aim to create a separate pavilion on the territory of the Expocentre and show society and the heads of our ministries and departments how to form approaches to strategic development, what methods to use, what goals and objectives we have to set in order to bring the country to a new level of development. We would like to send a group of our specialists to Moscow to study everything on the spot and talk to their colleagues from Boiling Point. Based on this experience, having absorbed the information and the existing practices, they would introduce them here," said Laziz Kudratov.

In terms of personnel training and building cooperation between universities, employers, and relevant ministries, ASD can learn from the experience of the network University 20.35 launched by ASIin 2017.

"Uzbekistan is a young country, more than 60% of our population is under 30 years old, and issues of quality training are among our priorities. It is vital for us to examine how ASI interacts with the ministry so that it can generate new products that meet social development needs," said the head of Uzbekistan's Agency for Strategic Development.

"This year, University 20.35 continues to be the operator of the Russian government in terms of implementing short programs for the population on IT competencies and digital competencies. The University 20.35 platform presents the best educational programs of Yandex, Sberbank, and technology companies in various areas, about 25 in total. We have to train 300,000 people in short programs. We also cooperate with regional and federal universities and are ready to consider cooperation with universities in Uzbekistan to implement programs of rapid training to meet the needs of the economy in terms of IT competencies," added Svetlana Chupsheva.