CESD has published new book. Ending Dependency.

The book was prepared by Center for Economic and Social Development (CESD), Azerbaijan, with the financial suport of Partnership for Transparency (PTF) Read more   Download Book

CESD Report on State Budget 2008

CESD Report on Azerbaijan State Budget 2008     More

CESD Report on Development of strategy of State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic

Project period: April, 2007-November 2007

Contracted by: Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)

Lead partner: EITI

Participating organisations: Center for Economic and Political Researches

Objectives Prepared and developed strategy for State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic

 Impact Increased awareness on oil revenues spending, influenced government on using oil revenues more efficient. More

Report from CIVICUS WORLD ASSEMBLY IN GLASGOW, UK ON JUNE 21/15

The report on the workshop compiled by the CIVICUS rapporteur.

 The report is posted below;

Workshop Session 1 - No 18 - New Anti-Corruption Initiatives by Civil Society

 Malin, Crowne Plaza Hotel. Thursday 22 June 2006-06-23

 Introductory questions/topics/issues raised by the presenters (including General comments made by panellists)

Vugar Bayramov - Chairperson of the Centre for Economic and Social Development, Azerbaijan :

The organisation was established in 2004 to fight corruption and encourage transparency in the distribution of huge oil revenues in the country. Oil production increased 10 times between 1998 and 2004. With a population of only 8 million the production of oil will peak at more than 1.5 million barrels per day by 2010. None of this is going to support the 60% of the population living in poverty in the country. According to the Index of Perception of Corruption of the Transparency International, in 2004, Azerbaijan ranks extremely low.

Before 2000, no information was given out about oil contracts to civil society organisations let alone the public. As a result of this lack of transparency, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by 30 NGOs in 2004 to work together to fight corruption and their pressure resulted in their government signing an agreement to provide twice yearly reports from oil and gas companies about production and revenues.

Civil Society Organisations now work together to monitor pipelines, and to strengthen awareness of these issues; they have recently succeeded in highlighting the issues at high level, making submissions to Parliament and in overseeing audits of oil companies' revenues.

 Pierre Landell Mills - Partnership for Transparency Fund

The PTF s an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to helping civil society play an effective role in the design, implementation and monitoring of national anti-corruption programs. It was created 5 years ago, and has as its goal: To Have Real Impact.

The aim of the organization is to support civil society with its important role in the development of anti-corruption and good governance programs, and it can play this role more effectively if it is independent, financially, from government or direct bilateral or multilateral funding. It funds small, time-limited projects which take direct action and can show real results. Altogether 49 projects in 31 countries have been funded to monitor public procurement, track public expenditure, oversee public auctions of public assets and the delivery of public services.

Examples are the Citizens' Charter in India, Anti-Corruption Coalition in Cambodia, a Public Procurement programme in Pakistan and in Karachi, an Integrity Pact with the Water and Sewerage Board.

Results show that for an expenditure of $23,000 the PTF saved Karachi $3-4million - small amounts of funding can have a huge impact.

Ashraf Patel, Alice Kanengoni - Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa

Resource Watch Strategies in Africa from the OSISA perspective - this is about energy for our global future. By 2010, 20% of the energy required by the US will be provided by Africa, and the Chinese government are currently on a tour of Africa - we see an interesting contestation of resources. There are now huge opportunities to invest in the African infrastructure - and OSISA want to see countries which have huge gold revenues but no roads and dilapidated schools being supported to develop their infrastructure.

 The workshop saw the formal launch of the new quarterly magazine OpenSpace - a digest of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and the University of Botswana - which aims to provide policy makers with evidence based research in developing strategies to counteract corruption and increase transparency.

Questions from the audience:
Re Azerbaijan -

 Q - how well does the audit function work? Is the information reliable, and who audits the auditors? How can the CSOs verify the numbers/figures produced?

A - the CSO selects the Audit company and has the right to question the company and receive their response.

Q - how complete is the reporting? Is the government assisting or undermining the process? Do the local companies manage to get away with it while foreign companies are investigated? Is the audit process compulsory and comprehensive?

A - Initiatives to oversee all this comes from the CSOs which are independent of government so they can be robust in challenging them. Re PTF

Q - should the fund be looking at reforming Procurement Law as well as funding the short term projects?

A - we need to keep supporting these initiatives but also working on the longer-term and more sustainable responses. But these projects are important in developing capacity to challenge - if formal rules are not monitored by Civil Society nothing will ever change.

Comment - re the Citizens Charter in India - this is more theory than practice - it is not really implemented - it's not in the public domain, and there is a digital divide and illiteracy to provide further barriers for ordinary people in benefiting from it.

 General comments and points

 Corruption can be so robust - how sustainable is the impact of these interventions, after the initial challenge? Can CSOs continue to track progress in challenging corruption and increasing transparency?

 Steady pressure from CSOs over time can change governmental actions.

Some initiatives are so successful that public support keeps them going - eg the outcry about a mobile phone licence was so strong that the government had to listen.

It's often difficult to replicate a specific intervention which has worked well in one country in other parts of the world - there has to be some adaptation of initiatives.

Conclusion/suggestion for action:

We need to share expertise and experiences as much as possible, and make use of tools which exist to provide right to information, and other ways to challenge corruption and lack of transparency.

Celia Carson
SCVO (Edinburgh office)