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Tashkent hosted the national workshop dedicated to the issues of professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities (PWD).

The event was organized by the Republican inspection for medical and social expertise of the Republican Pension Fund under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan in cooperation with UNDP.

The workshop was carried out within the framework of regular meetings organized by the Republican Inspection starting from 2014 and discussing the issues of social protection and rehabilitation of PWD.

More than 80 staff of medical-professional expertise service from all regions and districts of the country participated in the workshop together with representatives of the Ministry of labor, Ministry of health, Ministry of internal affairs, National center for rehabilitation of PWD, Tashkent institute for Training of Medical Workers, Council of Trade Unions and Society of PWD of Uzbekistan.

The main purpose of the event was to discuss and elaborate options to resolve issues of professional rehabilitation of PWD including job counseling, and rational job placement.

It was noted that rapidly changing technologic environment, modernization of industries and also development of private SMEs provide new options but the same time challenges for physicians to identify level of capacity of PWD to work and therefore challenges to provide relevant job counseling services. The immediate issue is to develop criteria for definition of working capacity of PWD (or level of disability). It is also necessary to review opportunities for rational job placement of PWD.

The particular attention was given to the professional development and retraining of PWD as well as capacity building of physicians responsible for rehabilitation and counseling services.

The workshop participants noted that coordination between different state and non-state stakeholders (in particular medical-professional commissions and centers for employment) was weak and needed to be improved. Successful strategy to address issues of PWD requires a diversified approach to professional rehabilitation and job placement depending on age, level of education, level of disability and other factors.

The participants were given information about joint initiative of the Republican inspection for medical and social expertise and UNDP in development of action research on review of the current issues and development of methodological guidance for the staff of medical-professional expert commissions in development and implementation of Individual programmes for rehabilitation of PWD and elaboration of recommendations for further improvement of such programmes.

In addition, the workshop participants actively discussed the raised issues, options and solutions. As a result of the event, the set of recommendations for further improvement of coordinated approach to social and labour rehabilitation and rational job placement of PWD were elaborated to be submitted to different stakeholders.