Three decades after the internet became a central part of daily life, nations around the world are working to accelerate the implementation of digital technologies to enhance how governments deliver services to their constituents. This was the core topic of discussion at the annual United Nations Public Service Forum, which took place in June in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and focused on how digital transformation and innovation can serve as key drivers for improving public services.

Uzbekistan has made digital governance a key focus of its ongoing programme of administrative and economic reforms, known as the “Uzbekistan 2030 Strategy”, adopted under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The ambitious program calls for “turning the country into a regional IT-hub through the development of digital technologies.” Moreover, it seeks to expand “the scope of digitalization of public services, eliminating bureaucratic procedures in the relationship between the citizen and the state.”

In implementing this programme, we are guided by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s stated principle that it is not the people who should serve government agencies, but government agencies that must serve the people. The goal is to reduce the friction people used to encounter when dealing with bureaucracy. To do that more efficiently, we have made it possible for people to conduct the vast majority of their business with the government online. 

Uzbekistan operates an interactive, unified portal for public services, my.gov.uz, providing citizens and businesses with access to over 761 types of e-government services, and a mobile app with access to 540 of them. In the first half of 2025 alone, the number of services provided exceeded 16.5mn. We have also integrated over 200 government information systems into a single inter-agency platform and implemented a unified billing system to simplify service payments. The e-parliament system allows citizens to participate in legislative discussions, while the digitisation of customs has reduced cargo clearance times by three times.

We are not alone in this approach – neighbours like Kazakhstan and Georgia have adopted similar approaches and are quickly advancing them. In some ways, we have leapfrogged some more developed Western nations saddled with legacy systems developed earlier in the digital age, where you can, for example, get your tax information on one website, but you must apply for a new passport on an entirely different one.

Artificial intelligence has already become an integral part of public service, helping to automate, personalise and accelerate the delivery of government services. Among the notable examples, Mukhlisa, the voice assistant of the public service portal, has already processed over one million user requests. Citizens can pay their taxes with help from Davron, another voice assistant, and Odil helps search and analyse legal information. 

We have also invested heavily in biometrics. The MyID Palm system enables contactless payments through palm recognition and has been introduced in the Tashkent metro. The broader MyID biometric technology is also being applied in banks, marketplaces and fintech platforms to ensure secure customer identification. 

We use digitisation not as a goal in itself, but as a tool to enhance public trust and citizen engagement. This approach is already gaining international recognition. In 2024, for the first time, Uzbekistan was ranked among countries with a very high level of digital development in the United Nations e-government survey. 

Our digitalisation programme goes beyond the public sector, with substantial investments being made into growing the IT sector and establishing the nation as an IT hub in the region. Uzbekistan is the largest country in the broader Central Asia and South Caucasus region in terms of population and also has one of the youngest populations in the region with a median age of 27. We have a unique opportunity to encourage, train and support the next generation of IT specialists and entrepreneurs with initiatives like our “One Million Programmers” courses and the tax breaks offered though our IT Park special economic zone.

The Uzbekistani government’s digitalisation effort is broad and all-encompassing, but it is also very much focused on people – how we can measurably improve living standards, expand our economy, and make government more transparent and responsive. We see similar efforts among our neighbours in the region, which validate our approach. The challenge is to keep up this momentum in order to achieve our social and economic goals for the year 2030 and beyond.

*Sherzod Shermatov is Minister of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan. 

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.