The new year started for UNICEF Turkmenistan with a renewal of an important partnership with the Non-Profit Organization “Center of Development of Innovative Social Services - Partnership for Every Child” (P4EC) from Russian Federation. Building on the achievements and newly identified areas of collaboration, UNICEF and P4EC have signed on 13 January the extension of the existing agreement to support the Government of Turkmenistan in strengthening Social and Child Protection system in 2022.

P4EC has been a long-standing partner of UNICEF and the Government in designing the SDG Fund Joint Programme on introduction of the community-based social services and since then were directly involved in modeling the social services delivery in the country, providing technical support to ensure a coherent and consolidated technical approach in developing the social work in Turkmenistan. This partnership provided expertise and technical advice which contributed to important results so far, namely – 45 social workers have been trained and embedded in the staff structure of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population with related costs included in the national budget, and a new Law on Social Services was adopted in 2021.

Through the renewed partnership, UNICEF and P4EC will continue to provide technical support to the Government in developing and strengthening the social service and child protection system in the country to support the significant efforts of the government to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, as well as institutional changes and capacities for effective provision of integrated social and child protection services through statutory referral bodies at regional and district levels.

“We are happy to continue our cooperation with Partnership for Every Child towards further strengthening the integrated social and child protection system. We are sure that that the country will benefit from this expanded partnership, as the areas of collaboration are fully aligned with priorities of the National Action Plan for the Realization of Children’s Rights in Turkmenistan” – said Alexandru Nartea, Deputy Representative of UNICEF Turkmenistan.

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