An Uzbek Farmer's Lesson

As Uzbek farmer Nazira Shamuratova found out, thanks to the World Bank’s Drainage, Irrigation and Wetlands Improvement project, “it is never too late to learn”. The goal of this project was to help restore the drainage and irrigation infrastructure in Uzbekistan and train Uzbek farmers in efficient land cultivation. Shamuratova, the head of “Kamronbek-Farangiz” farm in Beruni district of Karakalpakstan, shared her success story of cotton cultivation using the modern agro-techniques offered by the Bank.

Several years ago, Shamuratova – at one time a village school teacher – decided to rent a plot of land... More

Uzbek Schools of Usto-Shogirds (Craftsmen)

In the last six months Marguba Abduganieva, a woman living in an Uzbek provincial small town Urgut in Samarkand Oblast, has started to raise her own money.  When she is not busy taking care of her little children (two) and doing household chores she works at home. As agreed with customers, Marguba embroiders chapans (national cold-weather overalls).  This enables the young family to get small but regular additional earnings (some 5-6 dollars a week). They would not get any if she had not come to a local school for usto-shogirds together with other four housewives last July.

Marguba says: “I am happy with the changes in my life which has become more interesting and active. Domestic labor also brings income”. More

Price for Water

It's been for about five years since Saragul's family, living in a Karakalpak settlement of Kyzketken, has no problems with drinking water. It is a great relief for the family of six people, which for a long time had been using water brought by water carriers and keeping it in a big tank outside the house.

Owing to the World Bank credit allocated for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project, about seven thousand families of Kyzketken are enjoying regular water supply. More

Overhauling rural medical facilities

The rural areas of Uzbekistan -- home to 60 percent of the country's population -- faced a medical care crisis in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The newly independent country had inherited a cumbersome, inefficient network of medical offices, clinics, and district and central hospitals that did not function together effectively.

To improve this situation, the Government of Uzbekistan applied for a World Bank loan, and the Development of Family Medical Practice Project came into being. More

Helping Tashkent clean up mounds of garbage

Dmitrii Indukov and his family have been free from financial worries for the past nine months. This is because Dmitrii, a Tashkent pensioner, has leased a garbage collection point from the city’s authorities and now, together with his wife and son, sorts through the waste brought here by residents of nearby Yakkasarai district.

From their new brick house next to the collection point, the family retrieves recyclable materials such as paper, bottles, fabric, and plastic bags to sell to private firms, adding to his meager pension. More