Rena Safaralieva Met U.S. Secretary of State Madame Clinton with a group of Azerbaijan civil society leaders

Posted by: admin | Posted on: Апрель 23, 2013

U.S. Secretary of State Madame Hillary Clinton met with the group of civil society leaders during her official visit to Azerbaijan on 6 June, 2012.
The main topic of discussion riveted around the joint US-Brazilian “Open Government Partnership initiative. Issues discussed during the meeting included transparency of the state budget and SOFAZ, access to information, the role of civil society in addressing the country’s problems and empowering citizens, the level of cooperation between the government and civil society.
The OGP initiative involves active participation of civil society, control over public revenues, government transparency. In the case of Azerbaijan, the talk was about the possibility of civil society participation in the performance of the Oil Fund, need to expedite introduction of e-governance, the fight against corruption and the ability to influence decisions taken by the authorities.
At the end Madame Clinton expressed satisfaction with the presence of “a strong civil society in
Azerbaijan.” She said the U.S. attaches great importance to this.
The meeting was also attended by a representative of Open Society Institute Fidan Bagirova, coordinator of the National Budget Group Galib Abbas-zadeh, chairman of Center for Social and Economic Development Vugar Bayramov and chief of Public Finance Monitoring Ingilab Ahkmedov.