Azerbaijan to improve regulations on financing NGO projects

The key goal is to make organizations to think deeply about importance and mechanism of realization of projects they announce and which they want to yield results, chair of the Council of State Support to NGO under the Azerbaijani President Azay Guliyev said.

Contest on financial assistance was announced on Jan. 15, 2009. Deadline for application was Feb. 15. As many as 569 projects were submitted to the council in 2009. The NGOs appealed to the council to receive about 9 million manat. The Council has funds worth 2.68 million manat. Some 226 from 569 projects were approved and 1,848 million manat was allocated to implement them.

Guliyev said there is a need to improve procedures on accepting projects. "I would like to apply international principles during this procedure. We make compromise to the NGO while accepting their documents," Guliyev said.

He said the unfulfilled documents submitted to the Council will not enable the NGO to attend contest after the procedure is improved. "There is no such experience in the world. According to international experience, inadequate documents are not accepted. We turned a blind eye on similar shortages of the NGO. I think, it is time for serious changes iin this respect," Guliyev said.

The monitoring into implementation of projects is scheduled for September. Interim report will be issued in this period about realization of projects overt six moths. The secretariat's monitoring and report of two NGO attracted by the council will serve as basis. The final report will be prepared in December. The situation of implementation of the project will be clear by that time, Guliyev said.

/Trend News/