Learning the international experience on enhancing the effectiveness of the social protection system in the period of Covid-19 pandemic

The representatives of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan presented the Social protection policy priorities of the Government of Turkmenistan.

The technical experts from the World Bank and the UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia presented the international experience and best practices of social protection of population touching upon such aspects as adequacy and efficiency, highlighting alternative models of social protection systems, i.e. universal versus targeted social protection, and prerequisites for each model as well as the country experiences of forms of social protection measures, including during the global Covid-19 pandemic.

“As we have been witnessing, the global Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenging stress test for social protection systems of almost all the countries around the world and revealed the strengths and weaknesses of many of them”, noted Ms. Christine Weigand, UN Resident Coordinator a.i. in Turkmenistan.

The event was initiated as part of the joint implementation of Turkmenistan’s Socio-Economic Response Plan to the pandemic.

Given the complexity of social protection policies and experiences around the world as well as considering the breadth and variety of approaches, it has been agreed to divide the learning seminar into two sessions.

The 2nd session is planned on 10 June 2021 and will be focused on learning the international experiences on expansion of fiscal space to accommodate social protection programmes while maintaining fiscal stability, especially at times of Covid-19 pandemic.