United Nations Development Programme
Background information on the activities in Azerbaijan (1992-2009)
UNDP was the first UN agency to open its office in Azerbaijan in the fall of 1992 soon after Azerbaijan was admitted to the United Nations. The UNDP activities in the country initially focused on the provision of emergency humanitarian assistance, especially to those most affected by the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Over time, UNDP’s role in Azerbaijan has been shifting toward longer-term socio-economic development needs.
As Azerbaijan's national priorities changed during its first decade as an independent state, so did the nature of UNDP’s support. In its first years Azerbaijan experienced occupation of almost 20% of its territory, the collapse of its economy and serious political upheavals. UNDP helped address these needs by focusing its efforts on emergency relief and the reconstruction of war-stricken areas. In cooperation with the World Bank and UNHCR, UNDP helped establish the Azerbaijan Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency, which has been responsible for coordinating reconstruction activities, supporting the resettlement of IDPs and refugees and funding income-generation activities for vulnerable populations. In 1999, UNDP, in partnership with various donors, played a leading role in the establishment of a national mine action programme which contributed to the creation of Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) and helped mobilize over 20 million US dollars for demining up to date.
UNDP has increasingly focused on poverty reduction, the introduction of information and communication technologies, human rights promotion, environmental protection and HIV/AIDS prevention.
A major turning point in this period was the agreement reached by the Government with the consortium of international oil companies to extract oil from the Caspian. As a result, the oil sector has grown significantly and the State Oil Fund was established. Even though the oil sector continued to expand, the non-oil sector remained under-developed. UNDP worked together with the international development community to support the Government’s efforts to prepare and implement its first national poverty reduction strategy known as the State Programme on Poverty Reduction and Economic Development (2003-2005). The successful implementation of the Programme contributed to the process of achievement by Azerbaijan of the Millennium Development Goals. In 2006, UNDP contributed to the development of the new long-term State Programme for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development (2008- 2015) approved by the Presidential decree of 15 September 2008.
Since 2002 UNDP redefined its mission in the country and began to champion for the conversion of "black gold“ into "human gold" which promoted the investment of the country’s oil revenue into human development. In 2007, UNDP produced “Converting Black Gold into Human Gold” Report prepared by international experts. The Report recommended the ways of using the country’s oil revenues for its sustainable development, and emphasized the importance of developing an internationally competitive non-oil sector and investing into human capital to achieve this goal by advancing skills development and education abroad. Azerbaijan, in its turn, has recently adopted a State Programme for Education of Youth Abroad.
An independent evaluation of UNDP’s e-governance projects in Azerbaijan released in 2005 commended the UNDP’s efforts of leveraging ICT in the public sector reform. Among the beneficiaries of the UNDP’s assistance in e-governance valued in total around USD 35 million have been the State Customs Committee, Ministry of Foreign Affaires, Ministry of Justice, State Social Protection Fund and the national ICT Strategy process.
UNDP has been publishing National Human Development Reports since 1995 to track progress with Azerbaijan’s development and to highlight major development issues. This flagship report has reflected Azerbaijan’s changing priorities from humanitarian assistance to human development. The last National Human Development Report released in September 2007 focuses on gender relations in Azerbaijan.
Since the start of its operations in Azerbaijan UNDP has implemented more than 85 projects valued over $95 million. Those projects have been funded, for the most part by the government. UNDP Azerbaijan uses its core resources allotted by the Headquarters as seed-money for mobilizing additional funding for its projects. In 2009, 69% of funding for UNDP projects came from the Government. A smaller percentage of our projects is funded by the European Union, bilateral donors (of which biggest is the Government of Norway), the private sector and trust funds.
