Partners of the Joint Program on social services present results to the donors of Joint SDG fund

Held online and chaired by Mr. Dmitry Shlapachenko, UN Resident Coordinator, the meeting had brought together Permanent Representatives to UN and Ambassadors to Turkmenistan of the states and multilateral organizations financially contributing to the Global Joint SDG Fund, the members of the UN Country Team and the high-level officials of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan, a leading national partner in the Joint Programme.

In the course of the meeting the Heads of UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA and UNODC- the four agencies participating in the programme – presented the major milestones achieved to-date in implementation of the Joint Programme including:

• Successful piloting of a new local model of inclusive social services that has assessed the needs of 5,000 vulnerable people, covering over 1000 cases, including 41% of children, over 15% of people with disabilities, and 9% of elderly as well as evidence generated from the specialized social services provided by trained social workers;

• Development of the Law on Social Services, adopted by the Parliament of Turkmenistan in December 2021, expanding the range of social services, improving access, providing universal legal coverage and reaching out to wider vulnerabilities;. It enabled including the trained social workforce into the State Budget starting from 2022;

• Development of social work core competencies for more than 400 social service providers, heads of social services and related departments, social work professionals and academia through more than 200 days of training, as well as development of the National standards of higher education and generic curricula adjusted to the newly emerged national context for in preparation to the launch of a bachelor's degree program with major in “Social Work”.

During the meeting, the participants watched a short video showcasing new specialized social services piloted in Turkmenistan and learnt about the roll out of Phase II of the Joint Programme to ensure the sustainability of the Joint Programme.

The Joint Programme “Improving the system of social protection through the introduction of inclusive quality community-based social services”, funded by the Joint SDG Fund, is being implemented by the partnering UN agencies, namely, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, and UNODC and Government of Turkmenistan. The Joint Programme aims to introduce a new model of social services at the community level accompanied by relative legislative reviews and capacity building of national social service workforce. The lead national partner is the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population of Turkmenistan and the lead UN agency is UNICEF. Other key national partners include Mejlis, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Medical Industry, and Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan.