Uzbekistan explores building a waqf system with UNDP and the Islamic Development Bank

On 3 August 2026, UNDP convened a round table with Uzbekistan's Committee on Religious Affairs and the Islamic Development Bank to discuss findings on building a formal waqf system for the country. The session sits inside a joint initiative — "Developing the Enabling Environment for AWQAF in Uzbekistan" — running since 2025, whose task is to draft the legal, regulatory and institutional framework a modern waqf sector needs and to build government capacity to administer it. A concept paper presented at the round table reviewed international practice, catalogued the legal, institutional and fiscal constraints currently blocking waqf development in Uzbekistan, and proposed an implementation-oriented framework tied to the country's national development priorities. The scale of the opportunity is why the exercise is worth doing carefully: a joint World Bank-led estimate puts the value of waqf assets worldwide at somewhere between $100 billion and $1 trillion, most of it unlocked only where the surrounding law recognizes the endowment as a distinct legal person with clear governance and reporting duties. Uzbekistan's approach — concept paper first, stakeholder consultation second, legislation later — is the same sequencing this week's newsletter noted in Indonesia's gold ETF launch: define the rules before inviting the market in, rather than the reverse. For a country reconstructing its Islamic-finance architecture largely from scratch since 2022, getting the waqf statute right the first time will matter more than getting it fast.

This is a QeRN summary by Ahmed Qerni. Read the original at UNDP: https://www.undp.org/uzbekistan/press-releases/strengthening-waqf-tool-social-and-economic-development-uzbekistan.