World Bank project hands Uzbekistan a rural broadband PPP design as office builds slip

A detailed design of financial mechanisms, including public-private partnerships, to attract private investment in rural broadband in Uzbekistan has been developed and submitted to the government, according to the World Bank's Implementation Status and Results Report for the Uzbekistan Digital Inclusion Project, archived on 4 September 2026. The indicator, which stood at "No" in March, was marked "Yes" in August, meeting its 2029 target early.

The report does not describe the design: it gives no investment figure, no list of districts, no subsidy model and no timetable for a tender, and it does not say whether the government has adopted it. The project is implemented by IT Park and the Ministry of Digital Technologies, the report says. Neither has published the document.

A project mostly about skills and offices

The broadband work is a small part of a $50 million International Development Association credit approved on 27 November 2023 and effective since 26 July 2024. Its three components are digital inclusion and the enabling environment ($5 million), regional infrastructure and incentives for IT-enabled services, or ITES ($35 million), and promotion of Uzbekistan as a location ($10 million), according to the report. By its archive date, $6.10 million, or 12.20 per cent, had been disbursed. The credit closes on 31 January 2030.

The World Bank cut its rating for progress towards the development objective from satisfactory to moderately satisfactory and kept implementation at moderately satisfactory. Training and consultancy contracts are under way, the report says, but "progress under component 2 remains limited". The ITES incentive programme launched only in 2026 and "the expected uptake has yet to materialize despite the introduction of additional incentives". Design documents for new regional offices "are still awaiting approval", and construction "is expected to start in second part of 2027".

One of five planned regional ITES centres was operating in August 2026, the same as in March 2025. A mid-term review was held on 14 August 2026, against a plan of 20 July.

The numbers so far

The project counted 1,690 young people who had completed digital and soft skills training by August 2026, of whom 974 were women and 1,186 people with disabilities, against a 2029 target of 6,177. It recorded 1,002 beneficiaries employed by ITES companies, against a target of 9,000; of those, 139 were women. The number of ITES companies entering the market stood at 68 against a baseline of 133 and a target of 239, figures the report does not reconcile. Three of five planned international representative offices promoting the "Digital Uzbekistan" brand were open, unchanged from August 2025, and the national ITES strategy had not yet been submitted to the government. A separate indicator for legal and regulatory documents for the ITES industry moved to "Yes" in August.

The procurement record shows the larger contracts so far have gone to skills and strategy work, including a $3 million ITES strategy contract awarded in May 2026. A request for expressions of interest for technical supervision of construction in Bukhara and Syrdarya regions, estimated at $800,000, was published in March. The project's procurement plan, updated on 16 October, still lists works for an ITES building in Syrdarya region.

What the report does not say

The report does not explain how a rural broadband design fits a project whose objective is skills and jobs, or who would fund any resulting partnership. It names no operator that might bid, and no spectrum, backbone or tower assets the design would rely on. The next document to read is the project's next status report, which should show whether the government has acted on the design.