We are delighted to present our new initiative –“Technical Assistance for the Municipalities and Communities in Azerbaijan” project.

The main aim of the project is to support administrative reform at a local level to encourage fiscal and financial transparency. The project provides professional training to two pilot town municipalities in Lokbatan and Ali-Bayramli, so that they understand how to plan their activities, organise their budget and work both with and for their community. It is envisaged that the training will also include members of the Local Executive Authority.

We launched this project in partnership with IFES at the end of June 2005, and it will run for a period of 9 months till March 2006. Another partner is the Ministry of Justice’s Centre for Work with Municipalities, who will cooperate with training provided by an international consultant from the UK, and in the training of the representatives from the municipalities.

The project is being implemented in four stages:
The first of them included the Assessment and Training of Trainers and was conducted by trainers from IFES and the Ministry of Justice.
The second stage of the project, Community Outreach and Mobilisation, was devoted to the preparation of the outreach plan for target municipalities and training modules and identifying potential stakeholders as well as establishing working groups in each of the selected municipalities.
During the third stage – the Implementation of training courses with parallel municipality and community activities – the training and activities program was put into action.
And the final stage, the Evaluation of and Support for community projects, will include the allocation and monitoring of micro-grants for small community projects and the evaluation of project results.