Uzbekistan's Finance Ministry inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on March 24 aimed at ensuring a better alignment of Uzbek eurobonds with efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), building transparency and accountability for the public and investors.

“This agreement to strengthen the financing of national sustainable development has been made possible by the success of a dual-tranche of eurobonds issued in November 2020, worth $555mn and UZS 2 trillion, respectively, with maturities in 2030 and 2023,” the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said in a statement.

“The importance of this agreed alignment was made evident in UNDP’s recently conducted national Development Finance Analysis. This document has stated that 'maximizing the development impact of the Government of Uzbekistan’s planned increase in public investment projects soon would require a stronger alignment of selection procedures and project performance monitoring frameworks with SDGs'. Uzbekistan’s nationalized SDGs can provide a useful over-arching framework to maintain coherence across performance monitoring criteria and indicators used in different fields of public finance management”, it added.

Activities under the MoU are to include elaborating impact measurement methodologies and supporting the conducting of impact monitoring, institution strengthening and training for line ministries.