APT II

AZERBAIJAN PARTNERSHIP FOR TRANSPARENCY (APT) PROJECT II

September 2016 — September 2019

Project description

The APT Project enables activities over a three year period that offer to strengthen the vital role of Transparency Azerbaijan and other civil society organizations’ (CSOs) and/or individual experts in the fight against corruption, promote increased government’s responsiveness to people’s demands for transparency, accountability and integrity as well as contribute to corruption free business environment. The planned APT activities will address both increasing levels of civil society, citizens’ and SME’s engagement in anti-corruption initiatives, and at the same time offer to support the Government of Azerbaijan (GOAJ) efforts to more effectively tackle corruption issues. The Program will mainly support citizens, businesses and CSOs with the most relevant and successful Transparency International (TI) services, tools and solutions to ensure that successes on the anti-corruption front are sustainable and replicable.

Project goal

The APT Project goal is to promote good governance and the rule of law in Azerbaijan by fostering conditions for increased effectiveness of the civil society in promoting transparency and supporting national, regional and local initiatives to reduce corruption; by assisting the GOAJ in its efforts of efficient service delivery and ensuring transparency and accountability of public funds; by empowering citizens with legal knowledge and access to internet based civic instruments and, the last but not the least, by contributing to creation of corruption free business environment.

Project objective

The objectives of the project are to provide assistance to key stakeholders to enable progress towards achievement of the stated goal. Each objective is supported by a respective set of activities and linked to a respective result, discussed below.

Project beneficiaries

The beneficiaries include intermediate: (1) CSOs and groups contributing to national anti-corruption initiatives; (2) selected key public institutions in sectors that affect people’s daily lives; (3) Government’s ministries and offices responding to public call of “’corruption free” operations; (4) SMEs — beneficiaries of information booklets and vide reels on “easy business” and those whose concerns on implementation of the newly adopted laws will be translated into policy recommendations by TA; (5) users of the legal advice services centers’ in Baku, Ganja and Quba; (6) those targeted by public outreach programs, especially vulnerable youth and women, as well as final beneficiaries of significant reduction in corruption, which are Azerbaijan population across all socio-economic sectors.

Project activities

  • Citizens’ engagement through Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers operation and online civic activism, public awareness raising;
  • Business’ engagement by analyzing and preparing materials on newly adopted legal acts, needs assessment and advocacy round tables;
  • Government engagement by improving efficiency of public services and accountability for public revenue and expenditure;
  • Civil society engagement by developing TA’s institutional capacity and improving CSOs governance and internal procedures through training.

Project impact and results

The project seeks to foster constructive links between non-political civic initiatives and the Government to achieve results of:

  •  increased level of citizen awareness of corruption-related issues and strengthened capacity of citizens to respond to corruption and ineffective local services;
  • a platform to facilitate communication on newly adopted business regulations between SMEs and institutions overseeing implementation of the legal acts;
  • improved transparency and accountability of for public revenue and expenditure and enhanced public service delivery in two key areas (ensuring social protection and real estate management)
  • improved internal capacity of TA, its partners and experts, both managerial and professional.

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