Steering Committee Working Group of the UN-Turkmenistan Joint Programme on community-based social services meets to discuss its implementation

The online meeting brought together representatives of the participating UN agencies, namely, UNICEF, UNDP, UNODC, UNFPA and national stakeholders, including leading national partners such as Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan, Mejlis of Turkmenistan, Ministry of Education of Turkmenistan, and Ministry of Health and Medical Industry of Turkmenistan. Representative of civils society organizations also took an active participation in the working group meeting.  

Maral Yayliyeva, Secretary of the Steering Committee Working Group, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan, highlighted in her opening speech: “In close partnership over the past year, we have been able to achieve tangible results. Much has been done by mobilizing our efforts, a lot remains to be done.”  

Representatives of the participating UN agencies and national stakeholder co-presented the results and implementation of tasks related to all outputs of the Joint Programme. These included presentations on the primary analysis of the needs assessments conducted by specialists of social work, preparations related to piloting a new model of social services, the review of the legal and regulatory framework of Turkmenistan governing social services and proposals for its improvement, the application of the Standards Operating Procedures for the provision of services to survivors of domestic violence for women and girls, the progress of capacity building trainings, the curriculum development for social work in Turkmenistan, and information and communication aspect of the Joint Programme.

Participants were also informed about the upcoming economic analysis of effectiveness of community-based social services and gender assessment of proposed budget expenditure. Representatives of the UN agencies and national stakeholders actively participated in the question and answer sessions after each group of presentations related to each output of the Joint Programme.

The Joint Programme on “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 is aimed at introducing a new model of social services at the community level accompanied by relative legislative reviews and capacity building of national social service workforce. The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of Turkmenistan is a leading national partner. Other key national partners include the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Medical Industry, and Ministry of Finance and Economy.

Implementation period: 2020-2022.