Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Experts from the Institute of Macroeconomic and Regional Research (IMRI) analyzed the results of achieving one of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Uzbekistan for 2018-2022.

The fifth goal, “Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls,” includes 9 targets and 10 indicators.

In recent years, Uzbekistan has adopted several laws aimed at ensuring gender equality. In particular:

- Law “On guarantees of equal rights and opportunities for women and men”;
- Law “On the Protection of Women from Harassment and Violence”;
-Law “On the protection of reproductive health of citizens”;
- changes and additions to the Family Code.

The Strategy for Gender Equality in Uzbekistan, which stipulates an integrated approach to introducing the principle of equality between women and men in all spheres and levels until 2030, and the National Program for increasing the activity of women in all spheres of economic, political and social life of the country for 2022-2026 have been approved.

The result was an increase in the proportion of women occupying various positions, in particular:

- in the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis, the share of women deputies increased from 12.6% in 2018 to 32.0% in 2022, and in the Senate of the Oliy Majlis - from 20.0% to 25.0% during the period under review;

- the share of women in leadership positions increased from 27.0% to 28.2% during the analyzed period.

For 2018-2022, there have been a number of positive changes:

-the share of women aged 20-24 years who entered into a registered or unregistered marriage before the age of 18 decreased from 2.85% in 2018 to 0.05% in 2022;
- the proportion of women aged 15-49 years who independently make decisions about sexual relations, the use of contraceptives and requests for reproductive health services (according to MICS results for 2021-2022) was 54.7%;

- the level of higher education of women aged 25 years and older increased from 12.7% in 2018 to 13.8% in 2022 (based on the results of a sample survey of households for relevant population groups);

- the difference between the average monthly wages of men and women decreased from 38.6% to 34.0% during the period under review.

- in the Global Index “Women, Business and Law”, Uzbekistan’s rating improved by 6.2 points, i.e. amounted to 70.6 points (out of 100 points) in 2022;

- in the ranking of gender data availability published by Gender Data Compass in 2022, Uzbekistan ranked 56th in the world among 185 countries and 3rd in Central Asia. In the Open Data Watch data openness ranking, the country took 1st place among Central Asian countries and 30th place among 195 countries of the world.

It should be noted that the implementation of the 5th SDG goal is inextricably linked with the tasks defined in the Uzbekistan-2030 Strategy, which pays serious attention to the implementation of gender equality in the country. In particular:

- promotion of women’s employment, entrepreneurship development, vocational training and self-employment;
- protection of women from various forms of harassment and violence;
- protection of the rights and legitimate interests of women who have gone to work in foreign countries;
- promotion of the sale of finished products produced by women locally, development of entrepreneurship.