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The European Union and the British Council launch a new project for non-State actors and local authorities

13 January 2012 12:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. On January 13, 2012 the British Council Azerbaijan in partnership with local partners Azerbaijan Human Rights Foundation and Economic Research Centre launched a project â€œIntra-community Cooperation and Dialogue for enhancing Community Developmentâ€ financed by the European Union.

Ambassador Roland Kobia, Head of the European Union Delegation to Azerbaijan and Mr. Paul Clementson, Director of the British Council Azerbaijan attended the opening event of the project.

It is a local project that will operate in the north-western regions of Azerbaijan (Zagatala, Gakh, Balakan, and Oghuz regions) over a period of 24 months. The project is initiated by the British Council in cooperation with the following local partners: Azerbaijan Human Rights Foundation and Economic Research Centre. The project is co-funded by the European Commission (85%) and British Council (15%) together with project partners. The projectâ€™s overall budget is 256,448 EUR.

The aim of the project is to contribute to sustainable, inclusive community development of non-state actors and local authorities through improved strategy and citizen participation.

The project will strengthen capacities of civil society organizations and non-state actors, develop a localized Citizens Participation Strategy Framework and realize pilot projects on the annual activities of municipalities in 4 northern regions of Azerbaijan. The managerial capacity of 60 municipal officers will be enhanced and recommendations for lobbying to make amendments to the legislation on municipalities will be prepared and submitted to the National Parliament.

Within the framework of the project several activities will be conducted such as: capacity building workshops, trainings, regional roundtables, development of a recommendation package, dissemination of the project results on the national level and implementation of regional pilot projects.