NATIONAL PRESENTATION OF THE DRAFT VNR OF THE REPUBLIC OF TAJIKISTAN HAS BEEN CONDUCTED

April 26, 2023 a Round Table on presentation of the Draft VNR of the Republic of Tajikistan was held at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade with the participation of heads of ministries and agencies, representatives of UN agencies, public organizations, private sector, academia and national sectoral experts.

The round table was opened by the Minister of Economic Development and Trade Zavqizoda Zavqi Amin, the UN Resident Coordinator in Tajikistan Parvati Ramaswami, UNDP Resident Representative Lenny Montiel.

Zavqizoda Z. A. noted that the Republic of Tajikistan, under the leadership of the wise policy of the Founder of Peace and National Unity - the Leader of the Nation, the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, His Excellency Emomali Rahmon, in 2015 assumed international obligations to implement the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development for the period up to 2030. In this regard, in 2017, the country prepared and submitted its first Voluntary National Review to assess the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into national policies. Due to the achievements on succeed implementation of the SDGs, the Republic of Tajikistan from among the UN member states was selected to present a Voluntary National Review at the UN High-level Political Forum in New York in summer of 2023.

It was emphasized that as a result of the measures taken by the Government of the Republic, the rate of economic growth per capita increased from 3.6 percent in 2015 to 6.9 percent in 2021, and the poverty rate decreased from 31 percent to 23.2 percent, respectively.

With the aim to develop system of social protection a program of targeted social assistance is being implemented in the republic, which covers all regions of the country. Efforts throughout the implementation of the program were aimed at - increasing public awareness of this program, ensuring the use of improved methods for assessing the needs of households, creating a Unified National Information Register on low-income families and persons with disabilities.

At the same time, as part of the mitigation of the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic, about 50,000 families with young children who were enrolled in the national targeted social assistance program were provided with additional assistance of 500 somoni ($48), which helped cover their basic food needs. and medicines during a difficult period.

In regard with ensuring reliability of electricity supply of the rural population for the period 2015-2021 the proportion of the population with access to electricity in rural areas increased from 94% to 98%. The time of outages and the number of accidents are being reduced due to ongoing Government reform measures to modernize and expand the power grid facilities.

At the same time, the Republic of Tajikistan in 2021 has achieved 74th position in the ranking of World Energy Trilemma Index (search for a balance between three categories: energy security, equal access to energy supply and environmental sustainability). The country demonstrates the best result on energy security joining the list of the top 10 countries have made progress in energy security.

Throughout the last years of development, even despite the pandemic, agriculture has remained one of the main sources of the country's economic growth - the average annual growth over the past seven years has been 5.9%. The share of the agriculture in reducing food poverty from 15,7% in 2015 down to 10,7% in 2019 has been also significant.

As a result of the efforts on accelerated industrialization of the country the share of value added of industry in GDP has increased from 15,2% in 2015 up to 23,9% in 2021. Over this period volume of production of mining industry has increased 3,5 times, processing industry and industry as a whole more than 2,3 times in energy sector -more than 1,5 times.

It has been noted that taking into account demographic trends, there is an increase in the number of students at all levels of education, which indicates an increase in the capacity of the country's education system.

In general, efforts to improve the system of primary health care by organizing rural medical centers, urban and rural family clinics promoted increase in its accessibility to the population. As a result over the past six years the registered maternal mortality rate has decreased by about 70% and the infant mortality rate has decreased by about 36%.  Also the number of cases of newly diagnosed tuberculosis registered decreased by 26% and cases of newly diagnosed cases of HIV infection by 19,5%.

Moreover the excess of the growth rate of the housing stock (2.4%) over the population growth rate (2%) and the expansion of the population's access to drinking water from 76 percent in 2015 to 82 percent in 2020 indicates a progressive improvement in the living environment.

According to the data of the newly developed National SDGs Tracker Platform country has made significant progress on SDG 11 – sustainable cities and communities, SDG 1 – liquidation of poverty and SDG 10 – reducing inequality. There is also progress on SDG 3 - health and well–being, SDG 5 - gender equality, SDG 8 – decent work and economic growth, SDG 13 – combating climate change, SDG 4 – quality education, SDG 17 - partnership for sustainable development. At the same time, it is important to further strengthen joint measures to eliminate hunger, ensure access to clean water and sanitation, access to affordable and clean energy, industrialization, innovation and infrastructure development, responsible consumption and production.

It was emphasized that a wide range of consultations, along with an objective and comprehensive analysis, is an important part of the process of preparing a National Voluntary Review. In this regard, meetings of Interagency Taskforces of the National Development Council and extensive discussions with stakeholders, including ministries and agencies, development partners, the private sector, public organizations as well as Mass Media were held in January – March 2023. Also, focus group discussions and interviews were conducted with vulnerable groups of population such as youth and adolescents, the elderly people, persons with disabilities, refugees and stateless persons, HIV-infected, former prisoners, persons without permanent residence and other vulnerable people. In total, as a result of more than 46 consultations with the participation of more than 586 stakeholders almost 650 proposals and suggestions were received.

The Heads of the country offices of UN agencies and other development partners highly appreciated the results of joint activities on the implementation of the SDGs and exchanged views and useful suggestions in this regard.

Representatives of development partners noted the effectiveness of socio-economic reforms of the Government of the Republic to implement Sustainable Development Goals, national strategic goals and priorities, expressing readiness to increase their assistance and support on green economic development.

At the end of the event, appropriate decisions were made on the relevant items of the Action Plan for the development of a Voluntary National Review of the Republic of Tajikistan and the readiness of the parties was expressed to strengthen mutually beneficial effective cooperation.

For more information, please contact the Secretariat of the National Development Council under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, 37 Bokhtar Street, Dushanbe, by phone 221-13-53 and e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.