This story was authored by UNV.“Nobody tells you that one of the hardest parts of international work isn't the workload. It's learning how to be comfortable in a foreign country. I think that's why this work means so much to me,” says Rose Lagrotte. “The limitations force you to be deliberate. To find other ways to communicate, to lean on colleagues, to earn a place at the table.”For many people, working overseas brings images of exciting projects, international travel, and new opportunities. For Rose, it also meant arriving in a country where she could barely understand the conversations happening around her. Rose is an international UN Volunteer Climate Change Associate with the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in Turkmenistan. Her assignment, funded by France, focuses on climate. But long before she arrived in Ashgabat in October 2025 on a two-year assignment, her journey had already taken her across continents and through very different areas of work.“My journey here wasn't direct. I studied conflict resolution with a focus on climate-induced migration, which led me to an internship in Senegal working on community resilience. I saw firsthand how climate change isn't just about the environment; it’s about livelihoods, stability, and people being forced to move." She adds, "Later, I interned at the UN Headquarters in New York on preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA). It seemed unrelated at first, but it taught me that all these issues are intertwined. Climate migrants are vulnerable to abuse. A people-centered approach means seeing all the risks they face. When I saw this UNV role, funded by France, in the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, it felt like the perfect fit. By working with other UN agencies in Turkmenistan, this role brings all these different threads together. Since I started, I’ve been able to take on additional roles like becoming the focal point for PSEA  and promoting a culture of accountability within our UN Country Team.”Yet the biggest challenge she encountered had little to do with climate policy or UN coordination.Rose does not speak Russian or Turkmen. “Every challenge motivates me to rethink my value. Maybe I can’t join every conversation, but when I am given the platform to speak, I make it count.” She continues: “I don’t speak the local languages and this barrier is very real. I’m left out of conversations I would benefit from being in; I sit in meetings conducted in Russian and only understand one word out of every six."For some people, that might feel isolating. For Rose, it became an opportunity to listen more carefully, adapt, and find new ways to contribute.The experience also changed how she thinks about impact. “I'm the type of person who likes seeing the finish line. But this job has taught me that some of the most important work happens long before the results become visible. Sometimes you spend months building something that someone else will eventually complete."And that's fine, says Rose.“There are moments when I feel the weight of expectations. Being on a fully funded international assignment is an incredible opportunity, and I often ask myself whether I'm doing enough. Then I remember that no one changes a system alone. We're all just adding our piece.”Much of Rose’s work focuses on helping people understand climate change in ways that feel relevant to their lives. Rather than relying on technical presentations, she often turns to games and interactive learning tools. “Finding the right way to communicate also means finding the right audience, which is why a lot of my work focuses on youth and communities. I frequently conduct learning sessions using interactive tools like the 'Climate Fresk'—a French climate-related gamified tool—and the UNDP's 'Climate Box.' These climate quizzes and games help bridge the language gap, making complex environmental issues understandable to everyone from young children to teenagers," she shares."The young people here are already so aware of climate change, but playing these games helps them connect the dots between environmental shifts and societal impacts. Engaging with these bright minds gives my words a completely different kind of weight.”Rose arrived as a young UN Volunteer expecting to listen and learn. Then she began finding herself in meeting rooms she had never imagined entering, sitting alongside heads of UN agencies and government ministers. At first, she questioned what she could possibly add. With encouragement from colleagues, she began to see that her outside perspective was precisely what made her voice worth hearing. Those moments have taught her that contributing is not always about being the most experienced person in the room.Sometimes it is about asking a different question, sharing a new perspective, or helping others see an issue differently.
When Rose reflects on what has mattered most during her time in Turkmenistan, she does not begin with projects or policies. She talks about people.“What keeps me going are the people. The colleagues who share their knowledge generously. The young people actively participating in bringing positive change to their societies. The students whose eyes light up when they realize they can be part of the solution. Those moments remind me why I came here.”In a country where she arrived without the language, Rose discovered something else: communication is not only about the words you speak. Sometimes it comes from listening, learning, and showing up, day after day, until you find your place at the table. Perhaps that is what volunteers do best. They do not wait until they have all the answers. They show up anyway. And piece by piece, something bigger begins to take shape.

In Turkmenistan, systems thinking and strategic foresight have helped the UN Country Team (UNCT) engage the Government more effectively to identify strategic entry points for advancing national development aspirations and accelerating progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This shift did not happen overnight. It followed a phased approach—steadily building the UNCT’s internal capacities, processes, and confidence to move from diagnostic analysis to forward-looking, action-oriented decision making.How it startedWhen I joined the Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO) in Turkmenistan as an Economist in 2022, one of my initial priorities was to make country analysis more actionable. For the 2022 Common Country Analysis (CCA), we applied a systems thinking lens and identified ten cross-sectoral ideas that could potentially form the basis of joint programming. Two years later, in 2024, with support from the UN Futures Lab and an external expert, we introduced a foresight approach during a UNCT retreat. The objective was to turn the CCA into a continuous sense-making mechanism—one that informs not only the analysis, but also the Cooperation Framework and associated joint programmes over time.To institutionalise systems thinking and foresight in the way we work, the UNCT asked the RCO to first strengthen internal capacity on these approaches. The RCO staff was the first to enrich its own knowledge of UN 2.0 skills. It included a better understanding of anticipatory governance and strategic foresight for SDG integrated planning, use of horizon scanning, introduction to behavioral science and application of the Power BI tool. It was further followed by the development of the Rapid Foresight Tool — a concise, two-page, seven-step, in-house guidance designed to help UNCT members facilitate foresight exercises independently.We piloted the tool during the CCA update in October 2025 with around 30 participants, including members of the Foresight and Country Analysis Task Force (which I lead as the RCO Economist) and the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) group. Based on the positive pilot and the feedback from participants in the foresight tool training, the tool was further simplified and finalised for wider use. The UNCT subsequently endorsed the Rapid Foresight Tool for Cooperation Framework implementation. In addition, the Foresight and Country Analysis Task Force was formally included in the 2026–2030 Cooperation Framework governance structure, institutionalising foresight as a standing way of working. Foresight training has since become mandatory for UNCT members to ensure that joint programming and analysis are consistently informed by long-term, anticipatory, and risk-informed thinking. Foresight in Action: Identifying Strategic Entry Points in the Energy SectorStrategic foresight proved particularly valuable in the energy sector, given its central role in the country’s economy, and the importance of managing both near-term efficiency gain and longer-term transition risks. Through foresight analysis, the UNCT helped the Government position methane abatement as a high-impact and pragmatic first step within a broader pathway of green energy transition, contributing to Turkmenistan’s pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030—potentially equivalent to around one per cent of global energy-related methane emissions reductions.While the Government had already committed to reducing methane emissions, the joint programme “Support to Policy Making and Building National Capacity towards Green Energy Transition in Turkmenistan” (November 2024–November 2025), funded by the Joint SDG Fund, provided a critical entry point to deepen engagement by engaging stakeholders to promote energy efficiency to achieve key SDG targets. As part of the programme, a foresight consultant led a structured five-step process:Scoping: Several in-person and virtual meetings to agree on objectives and the analytical roadmapDesk review: Review of historical and current documents.Horizon scanning: Six UNCT entities jointly identified and analysed emerging signals.Scenario development: by moving from a narrower thematic lens to a broader strategic perspective, this step generated a range of preferred futures and risk scenarios to test possible energy transition pathways and identify priority areas for actions and risk management.Analysis and recommendations: Scenario analysis through backcasting—working backwards from the preferred futures to identify actions needed today. The draft recommendations were presented to the UNCT for feedback, and the final report, complemented by independent satellite data analysis, identified methane abatement as a particularly strategic entry point as it linked climate action with operational efficiency, reduced losses, and stronger resource stewardship in a gas-dependent economy in Turkmenistan.Under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator, selected UNCT entities then engaged the Government decision-makers in open, evidence-based dialogues. These discussions highlighted how methane abatement could simultaneously advance national priorities—including energy efficiency, climate action, economic resilience, job creation, and stronger social protection—while contributing to global climate goals. The foresight approach helped bring a systems lens into policy discussions, made trade-offs visible (including who gains, who loses, and implications for Leaving No One Behind principles), and ultimately supported the Government's recognition of methane abatement as a collective priority.Long-term investment in data—such as the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Beyond GDP diagnostics—also proved essential for shaping an energy transition pathway that is socially informed and attentive to vulnerable groups. These analyses revealed “hidden” vulnerabilities, including rising stunting, extremely high out-of-pocket health spending, widespread informality, and weakening social protection. This set of evidence strengthened UN engagement with the Government to ensure that the energy transition pathway is sequenced in a way that protects vulnerable households, supports jobs, and maintains social and fiscal resilience.What’s on the HorizonDeveloping foresight capabilities has helped UNCT Turkmenistan shift from backward-looking diagnostics to forward-looking choices on the future of a gas-dependent economy, including energy-sector reform, diversification, and systemic risk management. Joint energy foresight and scenario stress testing with international financial institutions (IFIs) demonstrated that decisions taken in the next five years will be crucial in determining whether Turkmenistan secures resilient and diversified growth.Building on this evidence and growing government interest, the UNCT is now developing an IFI–UN joint programme on methane abatement, with an initial USD 30 million blended finance envelope—including USD 10 million in government co-financing—designed to leverage USD 550–800 million in conventional investment by national oil and gas companies by 2030. This work can also help strengthen the evidence base for Turkmenistan’s evolving climate and energy policy framework, including the update of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0).Encouraged by this experience, the UNCT has decided to expand foresight and financing exercises to three additional high-impact SDG transitions, while explicitly linking them to the energy transition through shared risks and trade-offs related to water availability, food systems, jobs, fiscal resilience, and environmental sustainability.   A dedicated cross-thematic exercise will link water availability scenarios to food security, agrifood production, employment, shock-responsive social protection, and biodiversity outcomes. Parallel policy dialogues have focused on “no regret” options to protect macroeconomic stability, unlock high-value investment, and shield public finances and the young workforce from global energy and geopolitical shocks.In ClosingForesight is not a silver bullet. In Turkmenistan, however, it has proven invaluable for bridging the gap between analysis and implementation.By combining horizon scanning, strategic foresight, integrated SDG financing strategies, and political economy insights, the UNCT has developed a roadmap for transformative change that can be continuously updated as the context evolves. In line with the revised Country Analysis Guidance, as the RCO Economist and the lead of the Foresight and Country Analysis Task Force, I remain committed to leading and facilitating regular foresight sessions—such as during UNCT retreats—to keep long-term, risk-informed thinking alive.  

My daughter's name is Mahri. She was born in 1991. Until she turned 30, she was just a normal, active young woman – making plans, working, dreaming.How we found out about the illnessIt all started suddenly. Mahri began complaining about her eyesight: "Mum, I can't see well with my left eye – it's like there's a veil over it". Like any parent, I wanted to say it was from too much computer and phone. But I still convinced her to go see an eye doctor at the local health house and get her vision checked. The eye doctor didn't find anything wrong.A few days later, Mahri completely lost feeling in her left arm. I remember how she would pick up a cup and say in disbelief that her arm felt like someone else's - numb, like it wasn't hers. It became hard to manage her clothes, everyday objects, even eating. And strangely, the arm didn't hurt - it was just completely numb. Then the same thing happened with her left leg. My daughter couldn't walk on her own anymore - only by holding onto the walls or onto me, stopping every few steps.I looked at my girl and didn't recognize her. Just recently she had been laughing, running around doing her stuff, and now she couldn't even get to the bathroom without support. I couldn't sleep at night, wondering what kind of disease this was.We travelled to Ashgabat, to the S.A. Niyazov Diagnostic and Treatment Centre. There, in 2021, my daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). At first, I didn't fully understand what that meant - I was just lost.It turned out that multiple sclerosis is when your own immune system mistakenly attacks the protective covering around nerves in the brain and spinal cord. As a result, the connection between the nerves and the body breaks down. The brain can no longer control the body's movements. MS affects about 1 person in every 2,800 people around the world. You never imagine your child will be one of them.I was so scared that my child would lose the chance to build a future for herself.My nightmares at nightAfter the diagnosis, I barely slept. I would lie there thinking: my daughter is only 30, and she can't even walk anymore. What comes next? A wheelchair? Will she be alone forever? Who will take care of her when I'm gone? It wasn't the disability itself that frightened me - it was that uncertainty about the future. Not knowing when it would get worse, or by how much. I was terrified of watching my daughter fade away day by day, helplessly doing anything about it.Then in Ashgabat, they told us something unexpected: Turkmenistan had launched a joint project between the Ministry of Health and UNDP to control non-communicable and rare diseases. And under this project, my daughter was eligible for free treatment.I couldn't believe my ears. Multiple sclerosis medicines are among the most expensive in the world. And they were just giving them - for free - covered by the state? Usually, the medicine is given only twice a year, but it is a long-term treatment if not lifelong. In Turkmenistan, the price of one vial ranges from $3,000 to $4,000, can you imagine the financial burden if we had to buy 2 injections per year?The Ministry of Health and UNDP project: medicines for allIn 2021, UNDP and the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan launched the first cycle of the project to strengthen Turkmenistan’s national response to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Working hand‑in‑hand with the Ministry, UNDP supported nationwide distribution of more than 120 essential, medicines free for the patients - for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and other NCDs.With a focus on equitable access, the project reached healthcare facilities at all levels – primary, secondary and tertiary – including remote areas, while addressing gender‑specific health needs through targeted medicines for breast and cervical cancer, endocrine disorders, and maternal care.As Mahri’s mother said, such life‑changing support was beyond belief – yet today, thanks to this project, it is a reality for thousands of families across Turkmenistan.Way to recoverWe registered in Ashgabat. They started giving her the medicine ocrelizumab. When the doctors explained how it works - and when I read about it later - it seemed almost like science fiction.Note: The medicine ocrelizumab finds those specific immune cells in the blood that are mistakenly attacking patient's nerve cells and gently switches them off. Meanwhile, the rest of immune system keeps working as normal. In other words, it doesn’t cure MS or repair damage already done, but it can protect the nervous system from further attacks and stops multiple sclerosis from progressing.Mahri has now had three injections. God willing, she'll get a fourth. And I can see the results with my own eyes. My daughter has adjusted: she can see with her left eye again – not as clearly as before, but the veil is gone. The numbness in her left arm and leg has almost disappeared. She walks without support – on her own. She's smiling again, making plans for her life.That fear of uncertainty that lived inside me every single day – it has gone. My daughter will live a full life. She won't have to depend on me forever. One small wishTo be honest, there's one thing that would make our life even better. Right now, we can only get the injections in Ashgabat, it is administered as an intravenous injection requiring several hours. But we live in Lebap velayat – a very long journey, and it's hard for my daughter to cope with the travel. Also, she can't go alone; someone always must be with her to help and watch over her. That means extra costs, and at home, everything should be paused for this time.If we could get the same injections in our own velayat – even just at the central hospital – I'd be twice as happy. Easier for my daughter, and easier on our finances. I know, now ocrelizumab is also available as under-the-skin injections, it takes only few minutes and can be easily done in velayat. I know that many medicines from the project are already available in the velayats. I hope that one day this one will be too.But that's more of a request - really, we do not complain. I want to say a huge thank you to both the Ministry of Health and UNDP. After all, every parent's job is to raise their little children into strong, confident adults who have a future. And now, my daughter definitely has one.

The practice of YowarVolunteering is not a foreign concept in Turkmenistan. It is woven into the country’s cultural DNA. For generations, communities have practiced Yowar—an ancient tradition of collective charitable work, where neighbours come together to build homes, clear canals, or prepare for celebrations, freely and wholeheartedly.In Turkmen, the word “Meiletinchi” simply means “volunteer.” But it means more than service. It means communities are strongest when people show up for one another. Today, that same spirit lives on in new forms.Maya Islamova is a UN Volunteer with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Turkmenistan. She is a Data Visualization Assistant and helps turn complex information into clear, meaningful visuals that support programmes for children and families.For Maya, data is more than numbers on a screen—it is a tool to improve lives if conveyed in a simple, understandable way. A volunteer at heart“Every day, I am inspired by the knowledge that I am part of a mission that truly matters. Being the only national UN Volunteer has made this experience especially unique.”One of Maya's most significant contributions has been crafting compelling visuals that speak to people at every level. In a world where decisions often depend on what can be clearly understood, her work helps clarify UNICEF's work in a setting where she serves.Like many great stories, Maya’s journey with UNICEF began unexpectedly. A single forwarded email opened the door to a role that would change her life.When she first applied, she knew little about the work of UN Volunteers or their impact in communities. But her natural desire to help others connected her instinctively to the mission of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV).“As I look back, I see my dream of contributing to something meaningful unfolding before me through my work as a volunteer,” Maya shares.Using fine arts to convey meaningMaya is an artist and for her looking at data and visualizing it creatively is as others might look at a blank canvas. She begins with simple sketches and then builds them into stories, bit by bit. Soon these stories start communicating a message.“You give, you grow”his work directly supports UNICEF’s efforts in Turkmenistan, where the focus is on improving the lives of children and young people, promoting education for all, supporting early childhood development, and building more inclusive communities.“I believe that data has the potential to be a turning point in someone’s life,” Maya says. She sees volunteering as a two-way experience: you give, and you grow. Just like Yowar, the spirit of volunteering in Turkmenistan is built on people coming together to support one another. Last year, UNICEF launched an initiative for children with disabilities, introducing tennis as an inclusive sport. This was the country’s first wheelchair tennis programme, which gave children with physical disabilities a chance to play sports, build confidence, and feel included. Being part of this programme became one of the most meaningful moments of Maya's volunteering assignment, she notes. “Witnessing their joy and newfound sense of purpose powerfully illustrates the impact of our work. There’s nothing more fulfilling than seeing a spark of happiness in children’s eyes,”says UN Volunteer with UNICEF, Maya Islamova, as she continues the tradition of Yowar in Turmenistan.