UNDP and Partners Hold First Project Coordination Meeting on Prevention of Violent Extremism

June 26, 2018

Ashgabat, 26 June 2018: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held the first coordination meeting together with national partners of the “Strengthening Community Resilience and Regional Cooperation for Prevention of Violent Extremism in Central Asia” project funded by the Government of Japan.

This regional project aims to prevent the violent extremism among young men and women by building counter extremist narratives and improving employability of the economically disadvantaged youth in Central Asia. As a result, the project will help create lasting employment opportunities for young people to ensure socio-economic well-being and empower them to engage in opportunities to participate in social dialogues.

“This project contributes to the implementation of the Turkmenistan policies of promoting peace, security and development of the region. UNDP’s role in this action will be to promote social and economic inclusion of youth so that they stay away from the risk of being attracted into violent extremism” stated Vitalie Vremis, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative,” stated Vitalie Vremis, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative.

The meeting was held with participation of 20 representatives of the national ministries and agencies of Turkmenistan, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor and Social protection, Ministry of communal services, Youth organization, Union of entrepreneurs and industrialists of Turkmenistan, local administration of five regions of Turkmenistan and Ashgabat.

UNDP has presented the goals and objectives of the project and outlined the list of planned actions for 2018 to be implemented together with the Youth organization and the Ministry of labor and social protection of Turkmenistan. The action plans include preparing the training programmes and vocational education programmes for 1000 young people including 500 former prisoners, creating mentoring mechanisms, providing training to the experts of the national agencies and ministries on policy making and mechanisms for engagement of the vulnerable youth into the labor market, holding public events and information campaigns promoting mutual respect and peace in local communities.