Issues of gender equality in Uzbekistan were discussed

On May 7, 2021, IT Park Director Farhod Ibragimov took part in an online meeting dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women in Uzbekistan.

In the meeting also attended the First Deputy Minister for Development of Information Technologies and Communications of the Republic of Uzbekistan Oleg Pekos on questions Digital Economy and Electronic Government, UNDP Resident Representative in Uzbekistan Matilda Dimovska, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Uzbekistan Doyna Muntyanu, Head of the Gender Practice Group at the regional UNDP Center Bharati Sadasivam, as well as Deputy Director of the Agency for Youth Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Dilnoza Kattakhodjaeva, Head of Social Research and Implementation of Indicators Department Adib Nuritdinova and many others.

During the meeting, issues related to the empowerment of women in employment, digital services, mutual cooperation, identification of priority areas for UNDP support in the field of gender equality and much more were discussed.

Oleg Pekos, First Deputy Minister for Development of Information Technologies and Communications of the Republic of Uzbekistan, noted that at present in Uzbekistan, the government pays great attention to ensuring gender equality and supporting women.

“Currently, 28,000 people work in the field of information technology, of which more than 9,000 are women. I think this is a fairly good indicator, but it is not enough” added Oleg Andreyevich.

Farhod Ibragimov also made a speech, highlighted important issues and voiced proposals for the direction of mutual cooperation of the parties.

“One of the main problems that we noticed is the low involvement of girls in the education process. When we often visit universities, we notice that the proportion of female students is at a very low level”, said Farhod Ibragimov.

He also added that in order to remedy this situation, IT Park decided to start working with schoolchildren and schoolgirls instead of focusing on university students. The head of the government of Uzbekistan, the Ministry for the Development of Information Technologies and Communications of the Republic of Uzbekistan made it possible to create a wide network of IT Centers throughout the Republic. Each IT Center works with schools and school graduates locally.

“We launched a pilot project “TechBika” in the Khorezm region, bringing up all our regional IT-Centers in this region and began to work with schools in turn. Subsequently, pupils of the 9th, 10th and 11th grades began to get involved and interested in the field of IT”, said the Director of IT Park.

Among other things, Farkhod Ibragimov spoke about other projects aimed at developing women's entrepreneurship and the IT sector in general. He noted the potential and shared the results of such projects as “One Million Uzbek Coders”, “ITWomenUz” and “Tumaris Tech”, within the framework of which a tremendous work was carried out to ensure that girls had the opportunity to study various IT specialties and provide IT services directly from home.

As a result, all parties expressed interest and readiness to support initiatives, provide all kinds of assistance in matters related to the development of women's entrepreneurship, increasing computer literacy and other areas.