There is extensive cooperation between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Turkey which has been continuing for decades and according to the 2014 Global Human Development Report, Turkey's performance is above average among countries in the high human development group while the country still has problems on gender equality issues. Daily Sabah sat with U.N. Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Turkey Mr. Kamal Malhotra and talked about the UNDP's current works in Turkey, ongoing projects and the new post-2015 goals of the UNDP which they refer to as the sustainable development goals. The UNDP has been in Turkey for more than 50 years, from your point of view what is the most remarkable achievement of the UNDP in Turkey? It is very difficult to single out one thing; however I will single out four to five things within the last 20 years in particular. UNDP is the only international organization that has been working in the Southeast Anatolia for the last 15 years. It is, in my opinion, that this is a unique role in support of both poverty reduction but also now increasingly regional competitiveness of that region, which is considered a more socially and economically disadvantaged region. Particularly post-2001, in the context of the EU-accession process when Turkey became a candidate country, we were requested both by the government and the EU to get involved in areas of democratic governance such as judicial sector reforms, civilian oversight of the military. These are politically sensitive areas but only UNDP was seen amongst the international organizations to be able to play this role. Because of our impartiality, we are seen as a very neutral organization; our experience in this area around the world and our global mandate in this area given by our executive board of which Turkey is a member, all made UNDP the preferred choice. Last but not least, since 2011 our relationship with Turkey has moved to a strategic level where we are not working with Turkey in Turkey only, but we are working with Turkey to support Turkey outside Turkey. For instance, through the work we do with TİKA in terms of Turkey's international development cooperation program. Thus, we have a strategic partnership framework with Turkey and TİKA, particularly in support of the least developed countries; also we are helping in TİKA's own capacity building in some areas. As part of this, we are also working with Turkey on post-2015 development agenda which will be agreed later this year. We are also working with Turkey in support of its G20 presidency. Thus, rather than single out one, it is better for me to give you a range of important things that we do with Turkey. Under the area of Democratic Governance you have an ongoing project called "Civic Training for Mehmetçik." This project seems quite interesting, how did this project come about? Could you tell us more about the project please? I have found the project to be a very interesting and sensitive project. It came about as a result of discussion and cooperation with the government within the EU accession framework. Turkey has compulsory national military service for males in a certain age group and we see that age group as a very important group, due to their being the future of the country, either as sons, fathers, husbands or future lawmakers. Thus, with this group of about 10,000, we focused on basically training on human rights training program with seven different modules ranging from issues on women's rights, children's rights, environmental issues, and a range of other issues. Last year we handed over the training modules to the senior general in the armed forces. In terms of follow-up, we are still hoping that there will be some follow-up to this of course. There will be follow-up by the Turkish armed forces themselves, the modules are there so we have left behind a number of very concrete training modules which can be used not just with the future Mehmetçik but also by the Turkish armed forces itself. We stand ready to help if requested, but in order for this to be sustainable, it needs to be taken forward by the Turkish armed forces. Women's participation in economic life and the decision-making process still continues to be a major problem in Turkey. What are the UNDP's projects and achievements in this field? Firstly, I'd like to stress that this is seen as a U.N. wide issue not specific only to UNDP's work, because I am also the head of U.N. system in Turkey, I'd like to mention that as U.N., this will be a priority going forward in Turkey. There has been progress made, especially in the area of legislation but I think the real challenge lies beyond legislation. The U.N. system as a whole but also UNDP in particular, focused on areas to increase women's economic participation, women's political participation. Women's economic participation in Turkey is at 30.8 percent and it is the lowest in OECD. The OECD average in fact, is at 65 percent. The developing country average is at 55 percent and so whatever you compare it with, it is very low for Turkey. Women's political participation is also low at parliamentary level about 14pct but if you go down to the local level, the municipal level et cetera, it is about 4 percent. Thus, whichever way you observe the numbers, this is an area on which progress is very important. The UNDP has been working jointly in some cases with other U.N. agencies, and also with the support of foundations like the Sabancı Foundation, where we are trying to build and support women friendly cities to deal with issues of domestic violence, gender responsive budgeting at the municipal level and at local level, and gender equality issues which we have been emphasizing. So there is a range of things we have been trying to do regarding this, either as UNDP or together with other U.N. organizations. It's an area that I would like us to do more work on and we have strengthened our gender staffing at a U.N. wide level. The U.N.'s international development goals called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be replaced with new goals by the end of this year. In terms of these goals how would you evaluate the current situation, will Turkey succeed in reaching these goals?Both globally and in terms of Turkey, there has been a lot of progress on most MDGs. In terms of Turkey, Turkey has met most of the MDGs, but not all. Since we just spoke about gender and women's issues, the one goal that Turkey will not meet and has not met is what is known as MDG 3 which is on gender issues. However, Turkey has met goals regarding maternal mortality, poverty reduction, health etc. Even MDG 8 which is global partnership for development, because of Turkey's significant increase in developing cooperation programs from TİKA and other organizations. So Turkey has also met the MDG 8 goal. Therefore the biggest challenge that is unmet out of the existing goals is on gender. With the goal regarding environment, there are also some challenges but it is very hard to measure some of those. These are the two main areas that I would identify for further progress, however. We are now in the process of trying to agree a new set of more ambitious goals for the next 15 years. The U.N. Secretary General recently released a report to the membership of the U.N. to kick off the negotiating process on the new post-2015 goals which we refer to as the sustainable development goals. The MDGs are obviously not all met, so the SDGs will include the elements of the MDGS. The SDGs are very important because they are much broader than the MDGs and more ambitious and they are universal. Unlike the MDGs which are applied primarily to the developing countries except MDGs 7 and 8, the SDGs will apply to all countries, equally to the OECD countries and least developed countries. For the SDGs, there was an open-ended working group, in which Turkey has participated. That group finished its work and presented 17 SDGs rather than eight goals with MDGs. These goals have been presented to the membership, and they have to decide by September this year whether they agree to these 17 goals and also to the indicators, which are over 160. We are now in the political negotiation process amongst the U.N. member states to hopefully agree on this more ambitious agenda for the next 15 years, till 2030. Turkey assumed G20 presidency in 2015 and the country pledged to fight against inequality during its presidency. From this perspective, what are the main areas of cooperation with Turkey and UNDP? Support for Turkey's G20 presidency is one of my top priorities for 2015, and I've been engaged with all of the key people on the government side who play an important role and try to see the best way to support Turkey. One area that has emerged is an area that Turkey has been discussing with us, not finalized but it is fairly advanced, Turkey would like to work on, what could be a legacy issue for the Turkish Presidency, the role of the private sector in development as part of the development working group of the G20. They have asked UNDP to provide a concept and we are in an advanced stage on discussion with the government on this. In particular Turkey expressed interest in the area of inclusive business which is a concept that UNDP has pioneered and we have produced many case studies of examples of inclusive businesses around the world. I think that Turkey would be interested in seeing how from all of this we can extract guidelines for how inclusive businesses can contribute to development. We support very much and are very glad that Turkey has put development issues at the center of its G20 presidency as was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan but also by others. Since the UNDP is the development organization of the U.N., we couldn't be happier about this. Focus on the least developed countries is another area where we would like to work with Turkey on, and we are very happy that Turkey has prioritized the 3 Is: inclusiveness, implementation and investment which are the 3 priorities. On inclusiveness, Turkey would like to have an agenda which also positively impacts non-G20 countries particularly the LDCs, we are also very ready to support Turkey in that. Turkey has identified climate change financing as a possible area, renewable energy is also another. These are all areas that UNDP plays a leading role globally. The primary one which is a top priority for Turkey which we have had extended discussion on, however, is the role of private sector in development. We have our global policy center on the private sector and development in Istanbul supported already by the government of Turkey. So we already have a natural institution to support such work already in Istanbul. Recently UNDP had moved its regional center from Bratislava to Istanbul. What were the motives behind this decision? It isn't only the UNDP that has moved, we are in the process of making Istanbul a regional hub for the U.N. system and of course the largest part of this is the UNDP. The reasons for it are two fold; one is that our main focus for this region is the Balkans and Central Asia. Istanbul is much closer and a strategic location for us to access the Balkans and Central Asia from where we were before. Secondly, we are, as part of our U.N. Reform, trying to co-locate as many U.N. organizations in one place so that we have synergy and we benefit from each other's presence. So it's not just UNDP now, it's at least four U.N. agencies who have already decided to co-locate to Istanbul. UNDP has moved the largest number of people, the U.N. Population Fund has already been there, the U.N. Women has established its new regional office for the same region and WHO has also made a decision to set-up a regional facility as well as other U.N. agencies are in the process of discussing. So we will have a synergist U.N. hub focused primarily on the Balkans and Central Asia, based in Istanbul. The Turkish government has been very supportive, and has provided us with appropriate incentives and financial and other support to make this happen. Is there any other aspect that you would like to add? I'd like to thank the Turkish government for the very good partnership overall. We have a longstanding partnership and the government of Turkey clearly values its relationship with the U.N. more broadly but with UNDP specifically.