AKIPRESS.COM - The Agency for Social Insurance and Pensions (ASIP) in partnership with the European Union-financed Project “Technical Assistance to Support Pension Reform in Tajikistan” held the fourth in a series of week-long Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops for District Office Specialists throughout Tajikistan. The workshops covered legislative and regulatory provisions and reporting requirements of the social insurance program for specialists from all 68 district offices of the Agency. During that week, 30 GBAO District Office program specialists arrived at Khorog District office for instruction. Approximately 146 DO specialists have been trained during the last 7 months.

The EU has partnered with the Agency for more than 10 years and strongly supports capacity development and training workshops such as this one. Strong pension and social insurance programmes support further economic and human development in Tajikistan and this is the reason that this EU-financed Project is an important part of the Human Development Support Programme II signed in 2014 by the Republic of Tajikistan and the EU.

This series of training workshops, which has now covered all 68 ASIP District Offices, had concluded that week with the training of specialists from GBAO District Offices. The Agency initiated the series to ensure that a cadre of specialists have particular expertise in the operations of the social insurance and pension program and can instruct others at the district office level in the correct operations. The DOs have authority for recording worker and pensioner data and information, reviewing personal files, calculating program benefits, granting benefits and authorizing payments for all beneficiaries of the program. They must have a high level of expertise to answer pensioner and other beneficiary questions accurately and ensure that the beneficiaries are being treated fairly according to the law and regulations concerning their qualifications as a result of making life-long contributions to the program and working for the required time to earn a benefit.

The week-long workshops were instructed by 6 experts from Agency Headquarters who were also available throughout the week to answer questions and conduct discussions. The trainers received refresher course materials and further training on legislative, regulatory, budgetary, accounting and auditing topics.

The training was part of a broad range of technical assistance capacity development activities that the Project has worked closely with the Agency in implementing the overall reform of the pension programme. A series of introductory and advanced level courses in actuarial science has been underway in association with Tajikistan National University over the past year. The Project also has worked with the Agency in developing an electronic record-keeping and program administration system. The new ASIP Management Information System (MIS) has been field tested for 7 months during 2019 in two Pilot Offices of Varzob and Hissor. Also, over this last year, the Project has trained specialists in migrating data and information from the legacy records system to the new ASIP MIS and training has been initiated for employers and users of the system.