Turkmenistan paves the way toward the National Strategy for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health for 2020-2030

National policy priorities reflect maternal and child health as an essential part of the socio-economic development of the country. These priorities significantly impact the well-being of population today and the future of the nation.

Based on the results of the assessment of the National Strategy on Maternal, Neonatal, Child, and Adolescent Health for 2015-2019, the country has made important steps to enhance the healthcare system, while some areas require further improvement. The new National Strategy will support the Government in accelerating the progress towards achieving 2030 development agenda, and meet the international human rights recommendations related to women, children and adolescents. The new strategy encompasses critical overarching elements such as health systems strengthening, quality of health-related data, financing, cross-sectoral partnership, monitoring and evaluation. It also includes new areas for the health sector, such as gender equality, prevention of the gender-based violence and emergency preparedness.

The main objective of the planning workshop was to develop a strategic vision for reproductive health, maternal and child health in line with global and regional frameworks and standards. The Ministry of Health and Medical Industry aimed at targeting critical priorities and focusing on providing an equal opportunity to all women, children and adolescents to realize their potential and ensuring that they have access to quality health services based on principles of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) with a comprehensive state support at all levels.

The team of national and international experts worked to develop actionable and measurable strategic priorities for the next ten years that correspond to the selected targets and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) covering - SDG 2 (Nutrition), SDG 3 (Health), with substantial inputs to SDG 4 (Education), SDG 5 (Gender) and SDG 6 (Water and Sanitation). Dr. Martin Weber, Programme Manager of Child and Adolescent Health and Development Unit at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, highlighted that health sector specialists had “a unique opportunity to develop a National strategy, which will help the country to reach Sustainable Development Goals in the area of reproductive health and maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health”.

UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO expressed commitments to provide further technical support to the Ministry of Health and Medical Industry in developing a national strategy in line with the best international practice.