Istanbul. April 3-4, 2018. Turkmenistan shared its experience of implementing the Agenda 2030 at the 2018 edition of the Istanbul Development Dialogues organized by the United Nations Development Programme in Turkey at the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub. This year’s event discussed the reality of global development and brought more than 80 participants among which senior policy-makers, business leaders, civil society and experts, who discussed what works and what doesn’t for a successful path to 2030.

The delegation from Turkmenistan was lead by Mr.Orazmuhammet Ashirov, the Director of the Institute of Strategy and Sustainable Development of Turkmenistan who shared during the Conference’s partners forum the efforts made by Turkmenistan to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The other participants of the session made of representatives from the Governments of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as a number of United Nations agencies, discussed the socio-economic, governance, and innovation-related challenges of sustainable development in their work.

The IDD2018 and the partners forum gave the opportunity for exchanges among policy makers and non-government partners on experiences of more than 15 countries from the region in progressing towards SDGs. Businesses, development and commercial banks, and civil society organizations shared also their involvement in the agenda 2030.

During his speech Mr. Ashirov noted that Turkmenistan and the United Nations have been actively cooperating on SDG implementation since the goals have been nationalized in Turkmenistan in 2016. At the end of last year, lead by UNDP, a Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support (MAPS) mission completed its work and made recommendations about acceleration of SDGs in Turkmenistan.

In 2017, Turkmenistan was one of the first five countries in Europe and CIS to host the MAPS mission which provided practical solutions to accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2030 in the country.