'10,000 Steps' campaign to return via the 'Ekofaol fuqaro' platform: draft regulation open for discussion

Draft regulation open for discussion

The Ministry of Sports has put up for public discussion a draft regulation on the procedure for holding the '10,000 Steps on Foot' campaign and rewarding its participants; the discussion will run until November 13. The document has been posted on the draft discussion portal regulation.adliya.uz, as reported by UzNews.uz.

Who can take part and how

According to the draft, the campaign will be run through the 'Ekofaol fuqaro' platform, which includes a mobile app and a web portal. Citizens of Uzbekistan aged 18 and older may participate. Valuable prizes will go to those who walk the greatest number of steps during the year within the country, while walking at least 10,000 steps daily. Separately, the best participants in Karakalpakstan, Tashkent and the regions will be determined,as well as the holders of 1st–3rd places nationwide. Step data will be monitored by the National Committee on Ecology and Climate Change, and its goals — raising environmental awareness, promoting a healthy lifestyle and encouraging the use of green spaces — are set out in the draft itself.

Anti-cheating: what counts as a violation

The draft regulates the fight against dishonest participants in detail. Violations include using someone else's account, using treadmills, cars, scooters, bicycles and other equipment, artificially inflating step counts with technical means, as well as unlawful interference with the platform's operation. The operator has the right to verify results in cases of abnormally high figures, signs of the use of artificial intelligence or automated programs, complaints from other participants, and technical malfunctions. If cheating is detected, the participant will be suspended, the results annulled, restrictions imposed on the accounts of violators (and suspects), and those who won by deception disqualified.

History of the initiative: launch, cancellation and revival

The initiative is not new: to promote daily walking, the '1hls.uz' platform was launched on June 1, 2021,and participants who walked 10,000 steps a day were paid 3,000 soums. The project was cancelled by a presidential decree of April 6, 2022. Its revival was announced in 2026: according to UzNews.uz, this happened on March 23, when Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed a presentation of nationwide projects for 2026–2030 in the field of ecology, and at that time it was planned to launch it on May 1, 2026; Daryo.uz links the revival to a presidential decree of March 25 under the nationwide 'Eco-Culture' project,in which the restoration of the experiment was explicitly enshrined. The new stage differs from the previous one in its mechanism: instead of direct payments of 3,000 soums per day, rewards in the form of valuable prizes based on annual results are now provided, and implementation is moved to the 'Ekofaol fuqaro' platform. For now, the project is only at the discussion stage, so the final rules may change.