UNDP helps Azerbaijan to boost the capacity of regional NGOs
Baku, 10 September, 2009 - Today, UNDP and the Council of State Support to NGOs under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan launched a joint project to benefit regional NGOs in Azerbaijan.
The project document aimed at for strengthening the management capacity of local NGO sector in Azerbaijan was signed by Bruno Pouezat, the UNDP Resident Representative, and Azay Quliyev, the Chairman of the Council for State Support to NGOs under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
Cooperation between UNDP and the Government of Azerbaijan in the field of NGO sector development started back in 1997. As a result of this cooperation, the Azerbaijan National NGO Forum was established in 1999. During the first years of its activity, the National NGO Forum, with technical and financial support from UNDP created five regional NGO Resource and Training Centres. Each of these centres has been providing services to NGOs from 10-15 rayons.
According to Azay Guliyev, the collaboration of the Government with UNDP and other international organizations paved a way for a new phase of civil society building in
Azerbaijan in 2007, when the President of Azerbaijan established the Council he heads mandating it to provide NGOs with information, consultative, technical, organizational as well as financial assistance. The objective of the project, he said, is to further improve the capacity of regional NGOs in the field of NGO management, project design and implementation and accounting. In particular, a core group of 20 professional trainers capable of delivering trainings in some 20 regions of Azerbaijan will be formed and equipped with necessary training materials and knowledge tools on NGO management, and support the NGO Council’s capacity to coordinate the rural trainings delivered by these trainers for more than 500 NGO activists.
Overall, the Azerbaijani NGO sector possesses substantial untapped potential. While there are well developed organizations that have already established contacts with sources of funding and are more or less self financing and then they may need that they have a potential if being very active participant in civil society but have not established the procedures to mobilize these resources and many of these organizations are located outside
Baku.
During the first two years of its activity (2008-2009) the Council has provided a total of $4,000,000 in grant assistance to NGOs on a competitive basis .Only about 4-5% of the total amount of NGO Council’s grants went to the rural NGOs due to the registration requirement for applying NGOs. According to National NGO Forum, most of the over 1,000 non-registered NGOs existing in
Azerbaijan are located in the rural areas. One reason for them being non-registered is the complication in the registration process.
“We hope that the project will improve the way the regional NGOs operate and also increase their chances of mobilizing financial support from the Council, stated in his opening remarks at the launch of the project UNDP Resident Representative Bruno Pouezat. The creation of the Council and the size of the budget that has made available to it are the signs of the importance that the Government of Azerbaijan grants to the development of civil society in the country, Mr. Pouezat concluded.
