February 25, 2026 – The Government of Turkmenistan and the United Nations Country Team convened the UN–Turkmenistan Steering Committee meeting on 25 February 2026 in Ashgabat to review progress under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and to approve Joint Work Plans for 2026.
Co‑chaired by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and the UN Resident Coordinator in Turkmenistan, the meeting gathered senior representatives of national ministries and UN agencies. Participants reviewed achievements across governance and human rights, economic diversification, climate resilience, and the delivery of quality health, education, and social protection services.
Presentations by the Results Groups Co-Chairs highlighted key accomplishments from 2025 and outlined priority interventions for 2026. Discussions also focused on the global UN system funding trends, the Funding Compact priorities, the UN Country Analysis update, Joint Programmes, and the Cooperation Framework’s Financing Plan and Resource Mobilization Strategy (2026–2030) as well as strengthening reporting on SDG indicators.
In addition, Mr. Dmitry Shlapachenko, the UN Resident Coordinator, emphasized the growing importance of expert dialogues grounded in the regular UN Country Analysis. He underlined that such “Hard Talk” dialogues allow for deeper discussion of pressing issues in strategic development areas. It was suggested to hold another Hard Talk on energy futures scenarios backed with the foresight evidence developed by UNCT. The updated Country Analysis, he noted, was prepared using a new horizon scanning approach aligned with the UN Secretary General’s UN 2.0 agenda — enabling earlier identification of risks and opportunities and allowing joint programmes and financing to be more precisely targeted toward priority SDG transformations.
The Steering Committee endorsed the Governance and Coordination mechanisms for the new Cooperation Framework, 2026 Joint Work Plans, the Cooperation Framework Multi-Year Funding Framework, and the CF Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Strategy for 2026–2030. Members also emphasized the importance of strong national cofinancing and sustained collaboration across Results Groups and agreed to further improve reporting to better monitor national progress towards SDGs.
The United Nations Country Team reaffirmed its continued support to Turkmenistan in implementing national development priorities, strengthening resilience, expanding quality services, advancing rights-based approaches, and accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. ///UN Turkmenistan