On June 28, the Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, who is in Washington on a working visit, met with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said.

Samantha Power assumed the office at the USAID in May this year. she served the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations at the office of Barack Obama, (2013-2017), as well as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Relations and Human Rights at the National Security Council (2009-2013). She began her career as a war correspondent, she is a Pulitzer Prize winner. In 2004, Power was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world that year, and Forbes named her one of the 100 most influential women on the planet.

At the talks, the parties discussed the state and prospects of cooperation between Uzbekistan and USAID in promoting economic growth, ensuring employment of the population, developing the education and health care system, agriculture, as well as solving environmental problems in the Aral Sea region.

Samantha Power welcomed the progress in the reform program in Uzbekistan and expressed readiness to assist in achieving the goals of the government on socio-economic and humanitarian development.

Abdulaziz Kamilov invited the USAID administrator to the conference “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities,” which is scheduled for mid-July in Tashkent.

In October 2020, a full-fledged USAID mission was opened in Uzbekistan to support the program of economic, political and social reforms in the country. In June 2021, the first USAID Mission Director, Michaela Meredith, began activities.