On 18 June 2019, International Partnership for Human Rights, Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch sent a joint letter to the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Sir Suma Chakrabarti in view of the Bank’s country strategy review of Turkmenistan. In their letter, the three organizations highlight the severe and deteriorating human rights situation in Turkmenistan and ask the Bank not to expand its programs there to include public sector lending until the government has demonstrated concrete and measurable human rights progress, resulting in real life improvements for its citizens. The three organizations also argue that the EBRD should use human rights benchmarks recently adopted by the European Parliament to measure Turkmenistan’s progress in this area, emphasizing that the fulfillment of the benchmarks will determine the Bank’s level of engagement in the country.
Read more in the letter here.