Uzbekistan Digital Inclusion Project — World Bank-Backed Rural IT Skills and Infrastructure Programme

The Uzbekistan Digital Inclusion Project is a national programme run by Uzbekistan's Ministry of Digital Technologies and IT Park Uzbekistan, co-financed by a $50 million concessional loan approved by the World Bank's Board in November 2023, aiming to broaden access to digital skills and IT-enabled employment for young people, women and persons with disabilities in rural and remote areas.

The project's stated ambition, by its 2029 conclusion, is around 25,000 people employed in IT-enabled services and roughly 15,000 more in related industries.

Before rolling out training, the project conducted 2023 assessments of existing IT infrastructure in rural areas, the digital-literacy levels of rural school students and teachers, and the digital capacity of rural civil servants. Four rural schools in pilot regions then received digital smartboards, 60 computers and local-area-network equipment, and more than 450 participants aged 18–30, including women and persons with disabilities, completed soft-skills training across 9 of the country's regions.

As of the most recent public reporting, the project is still in an early implementation stage: the 450-participant cohort and four-school pilot are real, documented outputs, but the large 2029 employment targets are projections rather than demonstrated outcomes, and no independent impact evaluation has yet been published.