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BP starts new initiative to enhance youth capacities along BTC/ SCP

31 January 2012 11:03 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ali Ahmadov â€“ APA-Economics. BP, on behalf of its co-venturers in Azerbaijan, recently signed a grant agreement with the Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) to support local governance, youth capacity-building and environmental initiatives in Azerbaijan.
The agreement is aimed to enhance capacity of municipalities in identifying and addressing local challenges. It also aims to increase awareness on grass root environmental problems and facilitate their resolution through community action.
It is expected that the project will lead to establishing youth chambers within municipalities to train and engage young people through enhancing their leadership and project management potential in addressing local level environmental challenges in their communities.
The project will cover nine municipalities along the Azerbaijan section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus (BTC/SCP) pipelines, namely in Garakhanli (Tovuz), Girili (Agstafa), Deller Jeyir (Shamkir), Deller Dashbulag (Shamkir), Agasibeyli (Samukh), Aran (Yevlakh), Jinliboluslu (Goranboy), Orta Leki (Agdash ) and Ujar city (Ujar).
Under this agreement, BP and its co-venturers will contribute $200,000 and EPF will co-finance operations from other sources in an amount of $260,000.
The project activities will include providing capacity-building to municipalities in the areas of strategic planning and performance measurement. It is also planned that, within the environmental component of the project, EPF will award small sub-grants to youth chambers to support them in addressing environmental challenges in their communities.
â€BP and its co-venturers believe that by bringing together experience and resources of the development partners and local stakeholders the project will deliver tangible benefits to local communities in Azerbaijan. We are particularly pleased that the project focuses on young people aiming to enhance their leadership and project management potential, which in its turn will lead to tangible solutions in addressing local environmental challenges. Overall we believe this project will open new opportunities for local sustainability initiativesâ€ â€“ said Ibrahim Ismayilov, SDI Manager at BP.

Naila Hashimova, Managing Director at EPF, said: "We believe that our joint efforts with BP and its co-venturers will contribute to the development of the sense of ownership and responsibility among people in the target regions towards their environment and communities. Using multiple-tier approaches, EPF will use all of its resources to benefit the broadest spectrum of the communities along the BTC/SCP pipelines".
The programme will be implemented by EPF through engaging experts in the field of local governance and performance measurement system. Under this agreement EPF will subcontract the local organization â€œEkoloji Tarazliqâ€ (â€œEKOTâ€) for the implementation of the environmental component of the project.