Turkmenabat, 18 January 2010 – Over 40 rural women from various districts of Lebap province of Turkmenistan came together last Friday at the trade fair titled “Our Potential” in the city of Turkmenabat to demonstrate their achievements in business. The event was organized at Turkmenabat’s Drama Theater Hall by the United Nations Development Programme and the Women’s Union of Turkmenistan as part of their joint project “Gender Mainstreaming in Policy Making in Turkmenistan.” The event was strongly supported by local authorities. Although the project officially closed in 2009, the trade fair was yet another evidence of UNDP’s strong commitment to supporting national partners’ efforts to help rural women establish or expand their own businesses.  

Like similar trade fairs held in Mary and Dashoguz provinces in 2007 and 2008, the trade fair in Lebap province aimed at raising general public awareness of rural women capacities and promoting their business initiatives. All the trade fairs enjoyed support of local authorities who rendered a great deal of assistance to facilitate the logistics. 

The trade fair was opened by Deputy Mayor of the city of Turkmenabat Ejegul Bayriyeva and UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Narine Sahakyan who credited the entrepreneurial drive of the participants and wished them successes in their further business endeavors.

The range of products displayed at the exhibition was very wide - hand-made carpets of different sizes, flowers, house utensils, ceramics, food stuff, poultry, women’s clothes and many other items. High quality and organic origins of products were very much appreciated by numerous visitors, including employees of various state organizations, public associations, representatives of local self-governance bodies and mass media. Thus, the trade fair did not only give the rural women an opportunity to sell their products to customers, but also helped them to establish business connections and gain new customers for their future work

Prior to the event, all the participants attended a three-day seminar on the role of entrepreneurship in development of Turkmenistan’s economy and foundations of business organization by rural women at the local level conducted by the UNDP project in the city of Turkmenabat. The seminar specifically aimed at equipping rural women with basic business organization skills and expanding their understanding of market economy fundamentals to enhance their competitiveness in the domestic market.

Commenting on the outcome of business training and trade fair, the participants basically reflected the recommendations of the last year’s national conference of rural women which agreed that the project presented a viable model for replication and should be scaled up to all rural regions of Turkmenistan with a view of further empowerment of rural women.

UNDP project “Support to Gender Mainstreaming in Policy Making in Turkmenistan” lasted from 2007 to 2009. The project was implemented jointly with Women’s Union of Turkmenistan. It aimed at creating self-employment opportunities for rural women and strengthening national capacity for gender mainstreaming among policy and decision makers and NGOs. The project oversaw the implementation of a comprehensive programme which included Turkmen rural women self-employment needs assessment, business basics trainings, study tour to India, exhibitions of rural women’s products, development of rural women self-employment strategy as well as implementation of a grant programme to support rural women’s business plans. The project also supported the process of monitoring the implementation of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and National Action Plan as well as expanding awareness on CEDAW and gender equality, enhancing advocacy and problem solving skills.