DUSHANBE, June 19, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- The Delegation of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation consisting of the Deputy Head of SDC Department for Europe and CIS, Mr. Hubert Eisele, and Head of SDC Department for Knowledge Management, Mr. Reto Wieser, arrived in Dushanbe on June 18 for a two-day working visit, according to the Swiss Cooperation Office in Dushanbe.

The program of the visit, which was started in Uzbekistan, includes traveling to Ferghana Valley in order to get a better insight of water projects implemented in the region.  In Tajikistan, the delegation has visited projects on governance, judicial reform and health care.

The major purpose of the visit is to get to know more of these countries as well as their people and projects implemented with financial support of Switzerland.

The program of the visit includes meetings with the State Adviser to the Tajik President for Economic Matters Mr. Matlubkhon Davlatov, Director of Judicial Training Center Ms. Qanoat Homidova, key development organizations active in Tajikistan, and visits to the projects on access to justice, prevention of domestic violence, irrigation water, and health in order to observe the achievements made as well as constraints encountered in projects implementation.

The visit is also linked to the forthcoming mid-term review of implementation of the Swiss-funded projects in Central Asia due to take place in Bishkek, on June 21-25.  The mid-term review meeting is meant to summon the management and program coordinators of Cooperation Offices of the three CA countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)) in order to report on the intermediate progress of implementation of Swiss-funded programs and look into perspectives.  These projects are embedded in the five domains of intervention defined in the Regional Cooperation Strategy for Central Asia 2007-2011 with the joint goal of: promotion of transparent, accountable and effective public institutions; equitable access to good quality public services; sustainable, private sector-led growth.