Four Years of Serdar Berdimuhamedov: Isolation, Inequality, and Unfulfilled Promises

Since Serdar Berdimuhamedov assumed office on March 19, 2022, the Progres Foundation has monitored his presidency, documenting areas of Turkmen life requiring urgent reform. Four years into his administration, the overall picture is one of limited progress, persistent opacity, and growing social and economic pressure on citizens.

Throughout his presidency no national policies have been shared with the public and no public consultation took place in drafting state programs or public policies. Between 2022-2025 the government has not issued any response, reaction, statement and/or clarification on issues raised by the international organizations and the media. Not a single socio-economic problem, citizens’ complaints or reports of natural disasters appeared in the state news.

Here is our list of issues that President Serdar Berdimuhamedov has failed to act on and some areas where he made very limited progress.

What are the issues and areas of life that President Serdar Berdimuhamedov has failed to act on? Where has he made improvement?

Limited engagement without follow-through

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) missions to Turkmenistan in 2025 again recommended exchange-rate unification, a proposal repeated since 2017. The dual exchange rate still persists.
• The government’s engagement with the International Labour Organization (ILO) on forced labor has not seen any progress in 2025. There were no high-level statements made while forced labour in cotton harvesting still persists.
• The government released the full 2022 census data in 2024 without public communication. The lack of 2012 census data makes meaningful comparisons difficult. Also, the way the data was presented limits understanding. To date, state media has not used the published statistics.

Human rights and governance

• Despite commitments under the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, the government has not presented a clear policy roadmap to honor its promises. It is unclear whether the government has the political will and the institutional capacity to implement the UN’s recommendations it accepted.
• The Ombudsperson’s office continues to face concerns over independence, capacity, and the absence of a clear complaint mechanism to address human rights violations in Turkmenistan (GANHRI).
• Civil society remains constrained, with no public information on nonprofit registration or support for citizen initiatives that could provide educational, social and economic programs and essential services, particularly in rural areas (Civicus).

Public sector performance

• Turkmenistan ranks 170 out of 180 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index, making it one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Transparency International notes, “Authoritarian control over state institutions by Turkmen ruling elites has firmly taken root, with corruption being used to sustain power and evade accountability”.
• Turkmenistan is the lowest-ranking country in public sector digitalization in Europe and Central Asia, behind even Afghanistan (the GovTech Maturity Index).

Economic conditions and poverty

• The government ended the long-standing policy of annual 10% increases in public wages, pensions, and social payments.
• A dual exchange-rate system persists, access to foreign currency remains limited, and citizens have little access to international banking or money transfer services such as Western Union.
• Only a limited version of the state budget is published, providing total revenue and expenditure figures without any detailed breakdown, including income from natural gas and oil.
• Official poverty statistics are not published and no national poverty line exists. Independent reporting indicates rising hardship, with children skipping school and increasingly working in construction, brick production, agriculture, and informal street jobs to support their families. School-age children as young as eight have been observed begging in Ashgabat.
• The World Bank and the IMF continue questioning the credibility of economic data, and the World Bank has excluded Turkmenistan from reporting since 2018.
• The EBRD and OECD describe Turkmenistan as the least well-governed economy in Central Asia, noting that exchange-rate distortions contribute to emigration and brain drain and ranking the country’s transition performance the lowest in the region.

Private sector constraints

• While business registration and licensing procedures have been simplified and incentives such as unsecured loans for infrastructure projects and tax benefits have been introduced, the procedure remains paper-based and cumbersome. Licenses and authorisations must be renewed every two years, an uncommon requirement in Central Asia. In some sectors, renewal is required annually, with fees varying by industry. Businesses report that renewing licenses is difficult without strong connections while incentives tend to favour state-aligned enterprises.

Migration and passports

• Economic isolation, mismanagement, and limited domestic opportunities continue driving outward migration. Although the government does not publish migration data, estimates suggest roughly 1.9 million people left the country between 2008 and 2018 (mainly Belarus, Russia and Türkiye).
• Weak rating for Passport Index (power) limits Turkmen citizens ability to travel and move freely abroad. A deliberate government policy makes it impossible for citizens to renew passports abroad, trapping an increased number of migrants in legal limbo or forcing them to return to a repressive and corrupt environment. Many Turkmen migrants cannot conform to the migration laws of the countries where they reside.
• Many countries reciprocate with Turkmenistan, having highly restrictive travel and migration laws to qualify for travel visas. The visa-free system with Türkiye ended in September 2022. As of January 1, 2026, the United States has added Turkmenistan to a visa bond pilot program, requiring applicants for B1/B2 business or tourist visas to post a bond of $5,000 to $15,000. This follows a partial, restrictive visa policy implemented in 2025 due to high visa overstay rates.

Freedom of movement

• Despite constitutional guarantees, freedom of movement in Turkmenistan remains severely restricted. Due to the Soviet era ‘propiska’ system citizens are unable to move out from their place of birth to pursue better economic opportunities in major cities like Ashgabat. Citizens have no appeal or complaint mechanism to challenge this.
• Freedom of movement also remains restricted for international citizens. The government passed a law on the e-visa system for foreign nationals but has not taken any steps to implement it.

Healthcare and social protection

• No public health data, including COVID-19, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer and broader epidemiological indicators, is published. Available estimates suggest worsening outcomes in maternal mortality, child mortality, cancer and pollution-related health risks since 2018.

Women’s Rights

• Women and girls continue to face gaps in protection from domestic violence, increased barriers to divorce, and restrictions affecting access to legal and safe abortion.

Internet and access to information

• The aggressive Internet censorship and blockade continues. In December 2022, the government of Turkmenistan introduced the idea of developing a “sovereign internet” that is disconnected from the global Internet. However, no further information is available on its progress. Internet shutdowns violate economic, social and cultural rights of Turkmen citizens.
• During her visit to Turkmenistan in June 2023, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Teresa Ribeiro, discussed a number of challenges to media freedom in Turkmenistan including restrictions on the free flow of and limited access to information, both online and offline. She urged the Turkmen authorities to uphold their OSCE commitments to freedom of expression and media freedom. However, there was no follow-up on this from either side.

Education and youth mobility

• No international university branches opened between 2022 and 2025. Higher education capacity remains concentrated in Ashgabat which hosts 19 out of 23 universities, reinforcing regional inequality.
• Preschool attendance for children aged 3–5 remains low at 40.5% with stark regional disparities where only 19.1% children attend preschool in Dashoguz compared to 70% in Ashgabat.
• Given the limited capacity of Turkmen universities four out of five youth are unable to continue their formal education or forced to pursue studies abroad. In Ashgabat 82.5% of youth manage to transition from secondary education to post secondary education while in Dashoguz it is merely 6.4% (Census 2022). According to UNESCO there were 62,124 Turkmen students abroad in 2023.

Housing and homelessness

• In 2022, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov said, “Providing every family with a modern house or apartment will be one of my main concerns”. Despite this, no national plan, data or housing policies have been made public.
• Meanwhile, reports indicate rising homelessness, with people including mothers with several children sleeping in mosques, cemetery, charity buildings, train stations, and bus terminals to survive freezing winter nights. Many became homeless after failing to pay rising rents and living costs. The state neither reports on homelessness nor provides support or shelters.
• Complaints related to housing law, dissatisfaction with actions of the law enforcement officers and with court decisions, land law, right to work and migration issues were among the most frequent reported to the Ombudsperson in 2024.

Forced labor in agriculture

• State imposed quotas on cotton and wheat harvests remain which lead to precarious conditions for farmers and forced labor practices Engagement with the ILO has not translated into meaningful policy change as the forced labour and financial extortions including child labour continues in cotton harvesting. The boycott of Turkmen cotton by major companies and the United States’s ban on the import of Turkmen cotton continue.

Energy and climate

• A decline in methane emissions has been reported in the country, particularly at the Darwaza craters, since the country joined the Global Methane Pledge. However, the reports were limited to a one time decline but no continued progress has been reported.
• Turkmenistan continues to rely 100% on fossil fuels while no large-scale renewable energy projects were implemented in the country.
• Fossil fuel subsidies continue and Turkmenistan remains one of the top energy consumers and atmosphere polluters per unit of economic output.

Overall, four years into Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s presidency, governance remains characterized by limited transparency, weak institutional reform, and growing socioeconomic pressure. While limited and superficial steps have occurred, they have not translated into structural change. Economic isolation, restricted civic space, and rising poverty continue to shape everyday life for people of Turkmenistan.

FOR FURTHER CONTEXT, SEE PROGRES FOUNDATION’S PREVIOUS MONITORING REPORTS:

• Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s First 100 Days: Here’s What Needs to be Done
• Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s First 100 Days: Has he delivered on his promises?
• Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s First Year: Is There Progress?
• Berdimuhamedov’s first 2 years in office: What did he accomplish?
• Berdimuhamedov’s Third Year: Mounting Challenges, Minimal Progress

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