The Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan to the UN organized and held the third meeting of the Group of Friends on Sustainable Transport in a virtual format.

The meeting was attended by UN Permanent Representatives of the Group member countries, Executive Secretary of the International Center for Transport Diplomacy (ICTD) Igor Runov, Secretary General of the SLOCAT Partnership on Sustainable Low-Carbon Transport Marusha Kardama, President of the International Education and Research Network on Global Supply Chains (GSCC) Mrs. Chung Tam.

Opening the meeting, Aksoltan Atayeva, Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the UN, informed about the results of work within the Group for the first half of 2023. The upcoming steps and a number of proposals for the development of multilateral cooperation at the UN platform on sustainable transport issues were also outlined.

During the meeting, the following issues were considered:

• Consideration by the UN General Assembly during the plenary session on May 16, 2023 of the draft resolution “World Transport Day” submitted by Turkmenistan;
• Follow-up to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on sustainable transport in November 2023;
• Strengthening within the framework of the Group of the advisory and information mechanism. In particular, I. Runov presented a draft concept of the Advisory Council under the Group of Friends on Sustainable Transport (attached), the main role of which will be to prepare, at the request of the members of the Group, auxiliary analytical materials on the development of transport and international cooperation in this area. In addition, plans were announced to expand the current practice of preparing regular newsletters for members of the Group;
• The necessity to expand the membership of the Group and the range of its activities. In this regard, the significance of the entry into the Group of new members: the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Nicaragua was noted.

The participants expressed their strong support to Turkmenistan on the draft resolution of the UN General Assembly “World Transport Day”.

There were proposals to further expand the activities of the Group in order to regularly exchange views on ways to overcome challenges in the transport and logistics sector, ways to minimize regional and global barriers in this sector, and new initiatives of the UN member states in the field of transport development, according to the website of the Permanent Mission of Turkmenistan under UN.

Earlier, we reported that the Permanent Representatives to the UN of Turkmenistan and Ireland held talks.

Also read:

• Morocco announced its entry into the Group of Friends of Sustainable Transport, established at the initiative of Turkmenistan