Ashgabat, 28 January 2020: The United Nations Development Programme gathered over 100 national partners, private sector representatives, media, civil society and academic circles to discuss the subject of the global Human Development Report (HDR) 2019 “Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century”. The presentation is organized in partnership with the Ministry of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan.

The presentation of the HDR was conducted in the form of the national conference on inequalities and development with participation of UNDP Senior Economist, Ben Slay, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan, Mr. Muhammedgeldy Serdarov, Deputy Minister of Health and Medical Industry, Mr. Chary Agamuradov and Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Protection, Mr. Allanur Altyev.

“This year, we are talking about inequality in all its forms. As claimed in the report, inequality is multidimensional and multifaced concept, and we shall move away from measuring the progress by average salaries or average growth rates and look deeper into the substance of it. This change in thinking about progress and growth is vital to start seeking for better solutions and better policies for all,” noted Mr. Ben Slay in his statement.

Participants of the conference were delivered a presentation of the key findings and messages of the report, comments from the side of the Government of Turkmenistan on the progress made in the country for the last 10 years, and the role of UNDP is fostering sustainable development and growth.

“Turkmenistan has already achieved a lot of progress on the way of adopting and implementing SDGs, but there are persisting developmental issues that need to be addressed. It gives us a pleasure to see the level of response from the Government of Turkmenistan and its willingness to work together with UNDP to address SDGs and human development challenges. We hope that today’s event with spark a fruitful discussion and further expand the areas of cooperation between UNDP and the Government of Turkmenistan,” stated Ms. Natia Natsvlishvili, UNDP Resident Representative a.i.

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UNDP delivers annually over 10 million USD programme in Turkmenistan. With less than 70 staff, we implement around 20 ongoing projects.