Youth Employment in Uzbekistan: Challenges and Opportunities

Posted on February 25, 2025 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 2, February 2025

By Adkhamjon Janobiddinov

October 23, 2023 - USAID Administrator Samantha Power conversed with students at a secondary school in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Administrator Power listened to the youth speak about what motivates and encourages them to be active participants in society and their country’s development. The Administrator announced a new initiative to help improve the quality of instruction, materials, and support that every child needs to succeed in school, with an initial-year investment of $4.5 million. Photo by Isaac Blake/USAID.

October 23, 2023 – USAID Administrator Samantha Power conversed with students at a secondary school in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Ms. Power listened to the youth speak about what motivates and encourages them to be active participants in society and their country’s development. She announced an initial $4.5m towards improving quality of instruction. Photo by Isaac Blake/USAID.

Uzbekistan is a country with a huge youth population. According to latest reports, more than 60% of Uzbekistan’s population is composed of those below the age of 30. According to 2021 World Bank data on youth employment in Uzbekistan, the country’s population will remain young for the next 30 years. Although this can increase Uzbekistan’s economic potential, it may also bring employment challenges due to a higher demand for jobs. This article addresses the main challenges in youth employment in Uzbekistan and offers possible solutions.

According to the Youth Affairs Agency of Uzbekistan’s 2024 briefing on youth affairs, there are 342,000 unemployed youth across the country. The rest of the youth are employed in various sectors, including agriculture, textiles, construction, and services. It is also important to highlight that Uzbekistan has a huge informal sector, where 5.5 million people are employed. An additional 6.8 million people are engaged in the official sector. There is also a considerable number of youth working abroad. Although official data shows that the number of Uzbeks working abroad is 2 million, it is said that the actual number could be twice as high.

The government of Uzbekistan is implementing various projects to train youth and offer them pathways to pursue their careers. For example, free language learning courses are being offered. The government also signed a law to reimburse exam costs, such as IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, and many more, for youth who scored 70% or higher on these exams. The Migration Agency of Uzbekistan has signed agreements with several developed countries, including Germany and the UK, to offer job opportunities for Uzbeks in foreign countries. Furthermore, 152,742 young people received 56,000 hectares of fertile land to start their agricultural projects. However, there are still a considerable number of unemployed youth. In fact, the labor discouragement among youth reaching 5% demonstrates that there is a need for further improvement in youth employment policies. In other words, 5% of the young labor force stopped looking for jobs as they found no suitable employment options. Continue reading →

The Concentration of Power: Book Review

Posted on February 24, 2025 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 2, February 2025

Concentration of Power Cover - Anders Corr.jpg

Concentration of Power Cover.jpg

By John Gardner

The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy & Hegemony
By Anders Corr
291 pp. Optimum Publishing International. $19.95

I believe the present and future are best interpreted through the lens of the past. Dr. Anders Corr’s book, The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy & Hegemony, is that lens for those devoted to a broader understanding of historical hierarchies and their effects on the rise and fall of civilizations. This dissection of the “enduring conflict between those at the bottom who seek freedom, those in the middle who seek to protect the benefits of their own position at the top of sub-hierarchies, and those at the top of meta-hierarchies seeking to institutionalize and aggregate (power),” is worthy brain food for big-thinkers.

Dr. Corr’s work on “the steady institutionalization of power over time” delves deep into how the power structures of civilization, good or bad, form; and acts as a road map and warning for mankind. It is a profound thought on human nature to ask why humans typically seek to expand their institutions and power, even when that power is no longer necessary. Why did the French Revolution, which started with admirable ideals, turn barbaric while the American Revolution did not? Relinquishing the grip on power is the answer from Dr. Corr, but that is antithetical to human nature. Growing up, my dad told me numerous times of how Americans wanted George Washington to be “President for life,” but he declined to, and in that “set an example for future Presidents”. My dad admired his integrity. Continue reading →

What if The Houthis were in Malacca?

Posted on February 12, 2025 by Assistant Editor

Strait of Malacca (Oct. 23, 2014). The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) conducts a passing exercise with the Indonesian Navy Sigma-class corvette KRI Sultan Hasanuddin (366). Rodney M. Davis, stationed in Everett, Wash., is on patrol in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Derek A. Harkins/Released)

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2025

By Vaibhav Panwar

“For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril; nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.” — Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Between October 7th and most of 2024, the Houthi militia of Yemen earned its entry into the pantheon of global armed resistances— and the wider world’s list of threats to everyday life— with their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. While nowhere close to some of the infamous acts of terrorism committed globally in measures of human fatalities, the Houthis, however, have managed to hit the world where it hurts: commercial shipping chokepoints. Despite multiple countries’ naval efforts, the Red Sea and Suez Canal have observed a sizable drop in maritime traffic as ships opt to take the safer, but much longer routes to European ports. This often adds tens of thousands of nautical miles to their journeys, and with it inefficiencies to their cost, lead time, and the environment.

Continue reading →

Amodei’s AI Plan To Democratize China

Posted on January 16, 2025 by admin

Image of US and Chinese flags painted on computer chip.

Flags of the USA and China on a semiconductor. William Potter.

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2025

By Anders Corr

A new strategy that could peacefully democratize China and other autocratic states was published recently. By ensuring a democratic lead in artificial intelligence (AI), its benefits could be used to incentivize autocracies into nonaggression against democracies. Then, AI could unblock information and defeat autocratic censorship, ultimately improving education in autocracies to the point that Chinese people themselves would successfully drive and achieve democratic reforms.

While using the stick of military AI to deter autocracies has long been discussed, the idea of using the carrots from AI to buy peace with autocracies, and then using the same technology to defeat censorship and achieve democratization in those countries, had not, to the best of this author’s knowledge, been published before October. Continue reading →

Putin’s Nightmares and the Threat of a Nuclear “Accident”

Posted on December 13, 2024 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 12, No. 12, December 2024

By Christopher Shove, Ph.D.

A mural of Putin, Hitler, and Stalin with a slogan “No More Time”. Anthony D Barraclough via Flickr.

As Russian losses mount, Putin’s threat of a nuclear incident becomes all the more likely. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine report dated 10 December 2024, Russian casualties from February 24, 2022 to December 10, 2024 include the following: 755,940 personnel, 9,524 tanks, and 19,596 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs). While Ukraine’s estimate may appear high, there is consensus from many intelligence sources that Russian losses are substantial. A recent example is the increase in losses in the Russia Kursk oblast where Ukraine counter-attacked and has occupied since August 6, 2024. Here, Ukrainian soldiers report 10 or more daily waves of Russian attacks on the Kursk battlefield with almost all stopped, resulting in massive Russian losses. As a result, Russia has transferred soldiers from other areas to the Kursk battlefield – with only losses and no gains against Ukraine’s clever tactics. Continue reading →