UNDP strikes deal with Dushanbe on vocational education

An agreement was signed on Tuesday between the Tajik Labour and Social Security Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on a project worth US $420,000 supporting vocational training throughout the country, particularly for vulnerable groups. "The project in its initial phase has been offering vocational training to demobilised combatants in [the capital] Dushanbe, to date, 240 people have been trained up through the scheme," Andrey Sigorin, UNDP spokesman in Dushanbe, told IRIN. He added that the training had focused on producing book-keepers, computer and IT technicians as well as welders and other skilled people in demand locally. The next phase of the project in Tajikistan will involve the opening of a branch of the Dushanbe module vocational training centre in the town of Gharm in the Rasht Valley in the centre of the country. The plan here is to begin training women in this largely agricultural region that suffered badly during Tajikistan's 1992-96 civil war in which approximately 50,000 people lost their lives. "The Gharm vocational training centre will open next year, mainly funded by Japan and will provide women with the chance to gain marketable skills and create their own livelihoods," Sigorin said. The agreement was signed by Minister of Labour and Social Security Mamadsho Ilolov and UNDP Resident Representative in Tajikistan, William Paton. The war, the general economic contraction, and the loss of social services have caused a drastic deterioration in overall living conditions in Tajikistan since independence in 1991. Tajikistan's per capita annual GDP stands at around US $400, making it the poorest former Soviet republic and one of the poorest countries in the world. Unemployment, virtually nonexistent before independence, has increased to approximately 25 percent, according to Asian Development Bank (ADB) figures. Real wages have declined by 80 percent since 1991 as nominal wages have failed to keep pace with Tajikistan's high post-independence inflation rates.