BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 18
By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:
One of the examples of how COVID-19 affected cooperation between Turkmenistan and FAO is the recently conducted series of webinars, Giorgi Kvinikadze, Statistician, FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia told Trend.
“Initially it was planned to have a three-day face-to-face workshop, as was done in the past in many countries of the region. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was replaced by the series of 10 webinars lasting five days,” said Kvinikadze.
Nevertheless, adjustments were made to accomplish scheduled activities and the project intends to carry out the activities at project pilot sites on promoting best Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM) practices, he said.
“Currently, some procurement activities are underway to support these practices,” added Kvinikadze.
Overall, talking about Turkmenistan, Kvinikadze said that Turkmenistan prepared its first Voluntary National Review (VNR) in 2019 where the country reported significant progress in its social policy, economic development, and environmental measures.
FAO was glad to learn from the VNR that, since the adoption of the SDGs, Turkmenistan managed to achieve substantial results in social policies, enhance the process of market transformation, and implement measures on adaptation and mitigation of climate change effects.
"We also note the planned follow up activities envisaged in the VNR, such as to further improve the statistical capacities of various institutions of Turkmenistan in producing SDG indicators," Kvinikadze said.
“FAO is ready to support these actions in the relation of the SDG indicators under its custodianship, as the next step to the conducted series of webinars,” he concluded.
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