Building partnerships to achieve Agenda 2030 in Turkmenistan

The meeting focused on exploring opportunities for the UN – development partners collaboration to implement the priorities of United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), as well as to define the areas of common interest and ways to expand and operationalize the joint efforts.

The UN Resident Coordinator a.i. in Turkmenistan informed the participants on the overall cooperation priorities aimed at acceleration of the SDGs achievement in the country.

“Since achieving the 2030 Agenda requires unprecedented collaboration and partnerships across sectors and borders, joining forces with development partners from the public and private sectors is an important precondition for success”, noted Ms. Christine Weigand, UN Resident Coordinator a.i.

The Co-Chairs of the five Results Groups from the UN side for the Outcome areas of the new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for 2021-2025 presented the focus and priorities in the areas of

• Enhanced governance and rule of law;
• Sustainable economic diversification;
• Strengthened environmental management and climate resilience;
• Quality, inclusive health and social protection;
• Quality education and skilling.

During the presentation, the UN heads of agencies stressed the need of joining efforts in implementing of the above priority areas by proposing examples of opportunities to enhancing further partnerships.

After the presentation of the UNSDCF Resource Mobilization and Partnership Strategy by the UN Resident Coordinators’ Office, representatives of UK Embassy, GIZ, USAID, and ADB in Turkmenistan in Ashgabat took the floor to present their country programmes priorities that are complementary to the above UN priority areas, and proposed potential areas for further collaboration with the UN and other development partners to ensure coherence and collective support to country’s development agenda.

The Development Partners Coordination Group has been formed to strengthen government’s efforts in improving the impact, effectiveness and coherence of the development cooperation in national planning processes in Turkmenistan through enhanced coordination between the active development partners for development results for achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

The objective of the group is to enhance the development partner support to Turkmenistan by promoting effective development cooperation, and strengthening communication and coordination in order to avoid that several development partners invest in parallel projects without being aware of each other’s efforts and to ensure that parallel projects complement each other.