Foreign

Baku. Shamil Alibeyli – APA. APA’s interview with UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan Antonius Broek

-This year, Azerbaijan and the UN celebrate the 21th anniversary of cooperation. How do you estimate the collaboration and the UN’s work in Azerbaijan?

-Thank you for the interview. This year, we celebrate the 21st anniversary of the cooperation which started soon after Azerbaijan became independent. We have a long standing collaboration and I think it has been very positive and forward looking. Of course, Azerbaijan, like many other countries, went through the periods of conflict, During that period, the UN has played a major role. Secondly, GDP of Azerbaijan, like in many countries from the former Soviet Union, was not so high, so there was a lot of space for cooperation between Azerbaijan and the UN. Many UN organizations established their presence here. This process started with UNDP and followed by UNICEF, World Food Programme, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other agencies. I believe we have done a lot of work together in reducing poverty, significantly moving on capacity building, improving and planning strategy setting. We are also working on mine action. Up to now, we have worked together with ANAMA. Today, Azerbaijan is one of the countries with very high expertise in mine action, which has been used in many countries in the region. We have also been together in the field of sustainable development. I think we are making major steps forward. Azerbaijan is a strong member of the UN, it signed various conventions and stands for the principles and values of the UN as it expressed in the Charter of the UN.

-Which projects and in which areas the UN System in Azerbaijan plans to implement in the near future?

-First of all, UN agencies align their programmers with the priorities of the countries. We have been working based on the five-year programme. This planning activity is called the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF). That’s the general agreement reached between the government of the country and the UN on the cooperation priorities. So, we will commence this plan in 2016 once again and it will be our future five-year vision to continue working on sustainable development and environmental activities, including waste management, renewable energy, erosion reduce, flood management, etc. One important area we have been working together is e-governance, using modern communication technologies in all kind of sectors to increase its efficiency and delivery of services to the population as well as reduce the transaction costs. We are closely working on e-Governance with the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, the State Pension Fund, the Ministry of Taxes, the State Customs Committee, etc.

Recently, we have launched a new partnership project with the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations. The agency has been recently set up by the government to serve the population. This was an initiative of the Government that we have worked on very closely. Secondly, we will continue to work over the coming years with the Ministry of Communications on further expanding of the ICT delivery to the regions as well as in improving the capacity and bringing new technologies. That will be a big programme for the following years. We also work with the customs on improving of tracking of import and export using more hi-tech equipment. We will work in the area of crisis prevention and recovery as well. Last but not least, we work on promoting gender equality and reducing violence against women as well as the empowerment of youth. Of course, being UNDP we do not do this work alone, we work closely with UNICEF on the children related aspects and education, we work closely with UNHCR on the issues of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), with the World Health Organization (WHO) on the issues related to health, etc.

Our cooperation is at its highest level. I foresee that over the coming years we will further deepen this collaboration. As you know, Azerbaijan’s income is going up, while the country is also emerging as a donor. So this implies not only using benefits of oil and gas for the people of Azerbaijan, but also sharing its benefits with other countries. The UN works closely with the Government on helping other countries to facilitate the process, for instance, in cooperation with Afghanistan. This is very important step forward that Azerbaijan is taking for the people globally and that fits the ongoing development trends in the world very well.

-Azerbaijan, for the first time, was elected to and presided over the UN Security Council. How do you estimate Azerbaijan’s presidency?

- It is a very good question, because now Azerbaijan is chairing the Security Council for the second time. In 2012, Azerbaijan chaired the Security Council during May. Now Azerbaijan is chairing the Council throughout October. As we all know, there are so many big challenges, which the world faces at this moment, so I am sure that Azerbaijan will play an important role by guiding the discussions within the Security Council. Big challenges are ahead and there is a great opportunity once again to show the commitment and skills of your country to contribute to peace and security in the world. During its membership at the Council, Azerbaijan has been very positively contributing to dialogues on key issues such as the conflict in Syria and weapons of mass destruction, etc. So, I think Azerbaijan has made a very good contribution to it. During that period some senior officials of the Government participated at the Security Council’s sessions and made statements from there. I think it was a great opportunity and recognition of Azerbaijan as an important actor in the world. In my view, Azerbaijan is one of the first non-permanent members of the Security Council from the post-Soviet or CIS countries.

-As you know, the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly is continuing its work in New York. What do you expect from this session and how do you estimate its work?

- First of all, it is not over yet, it has just started. Different countries, delegations are still making their opening speeches, statements to the General Assembly (GA). There are many important issues to be discussed in the Assembly, you can see it from the statements made at the beginning, as well as from what is going on in the Security Council.

There are several main areas of concern to the world where really different solutions have to be found. Secondly, as we see, the young generation is rightly asking for a good future from all over the world. I think it is an expression of concerns and the countries as well as leaders of countries have to address these issues. Now, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) still have to be achieved by 2015, the target year for the MDGs. There is a new way of thinking going into the roots of conflicts caused by the dissatisfaction of the younger generation. The General Assembly is will look through these issues. Secondly, there is an economic crisis in the UN, like in any other part of the world, the funding becomes an issue as well as how to further improve the use of resources. So, there will be some of debates in the GA on the mobilization of resources. Some topics concerning the entire world were discussed, and I know that Azerbaijan was very actively involved, so I am confident that outcomes will be positive, but it is so complex at the moment. I am sure that after the GA session there will be a clear need for concrete follow-up in the different working groups.

-How does Azerbaijan fulfill the Millennium Development Goals? What developments it could gain?

-First of all, I can say that the Millennium Development Goals were signed by the member states of UN in 2000 and are planned to be achieved by 2015 as a target year. Quite some countries still face some challenges to achieve several of them. Overall, most of the countries are making progress, especially in the area of poverty reduction. So, while we think of what will happen after 2015, we also need to think today how we can accelerate progress on the MDGs. Azerbaijan has made a very impressive progress, first of all, in the area of poverty reduction.

And some progress has been made in many other areas such as health, education, gender. I think Azerbaijan will achieve most of the MDG’s by 2015. But still there are a lot of possibilities for going further, especially in the area of health. In education sector, I think there is a lot of opportunity for improvement in forming the type of skills should be learned at schools and to make sure that those skills are the one you need at the job and in modern society. A clear link between primary, secondary and higher education is needed. Not only Azerbaijan, but also many other countries, are achieving the MDGs in terms of numbers. The emphasis should be also on quality in order to go further in improving services in hospitals and other medical facilities, education and social service delivery, in general.

Azerbaijan has made progress in achieving the MDGs, which also shows that after the independence the country used oil and gas resources for its development. It shows that the country receives a lot of benefits from its natural resources and that quite some of the benefits have been reinvested into the people of the country, and, as a result, poverty has reduced. Now, another big challenge is the economic diversification. Certainly, many initiatives have been implemented, but also a lot can be done. Since oil and gas resources are not infinite, we need to invest in other areas to create jobs for population, including youth. There is a need to diversify the national economy. Then, I think it is possible to have an even equal distribution of benefits between urban and rural areas, not only between Baku and regions, but also between regional cities and its suburbs.

-Does the UN Secretary-General, or other high ranking UN officials, have plans to visit South Caucasus and, especially, Azerbaijan?

-There are always discussions and talks going on for potential visits of high-level officials, while some of them have already visited Azerbaijan in recent months. For example, Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs visited the country last year during the Baku Internet Governance Forum. I know Azerbaijan would be very pleased to receive the UN Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon too. High-level officials of Azerbaijan held meetings with the UN Secretary-General in New York, Geneva Headquarters, and even in Doha. The fact that he has not visited the country doesn’t mean there is no dialogue at a high level. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Elmar Mammadyarov meets them regularly. I consider that UNDP Administrator Helen Clark also would like to visit Azerbaijan at a certain moment, but I cannot tell when that will happen. Azerbaijan would be an interesting country for her to come and we are seriously looking into this kind of opportunities. So, once again, Azerbaijan is having a dialogue with these high-level officials. The fact whether they visited Azerbaijan or not doesn’t mean that they are not as concerned about your country as with others. I can guarantee that the UN is very much aware and appreciates Azerbaijan for its work.

- How the UN can assist in resolving the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh?

The OSCE Minsk Group was created with the responsibility to promote the dialogue with Azerbaijan and Armenia and the other partners on the issue, trying to find solutions. So far, the negotiation process has not led to what we really hoped for. From the UN perspective, we really hope that solution can be found very soon, and, of course, the key partners are helping conflicting countries to come to an agreement. The UN doesn’t have a mandate to make the discussion which is being held by the OSCE Minsk Group. I have no mandate to implement something by myself, but I hope that the countries will come together to find a solution, and, foremost from the UN, we believe in dialogue.

Only dialogue is a solution and we don’t want any form of conflict again, and I am confident that this is not a wish of the partners or any conflicting countries involved. There had been many internally displaced persons and lots of people suffered 20 years ago. The UN helped in addressing the humanitarian issues. As soon as the agreement has been reached, the UN will be immediately ready to work with the partners involved to implement programmes focusing on humanitarian assistance. But, I would say, more important is to assist in rebuilding life of people and fostering understanding and reconciliation among the people involved. I really hope that the solution can be found very soon for the benefit of anyone living in the region and, especially, to the people directly affected by the conflict.

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