OSCE Office in Baku

In the economic and environmental dimension, the OSCE Office in Baku focuses on four main areas:

• Small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and regional economic development
• Good governance and anti-corruption
• Environmental awareness-raising
• Promotion of energy security

SME and regional economic development

Developing Azerbaijan's non-oil sector is important for the country's economic security. Although the energy sector has expanded rapidly in recent years, the agriculture remains a major source of income and employment in the regions outside the Baku metropolitan area and Absheron peninsula. However, production and sales of agricultural products have not yet reached their full potential, due in part to lack of business skills, as well as the scarcity of financial resources and investment in this sector.

To address these issues, the OSCE Office in Baku supports training initiatives to encourage regional economic development, particularly training in practical business skills and resource mobilization for entrepreneurs in the northern and southern regions of Azerbaijan. It also organizes large-scale economic development workshops in co-operation with the regional government authorities and other relevant stakeholders. These workshops address a range of business support activities, such as assistance in marketing, financing, and production methods, in order to enable SMEs to realize their economic potential and to better meet the demands of a market economy.

Good governance and anti-corruption assistance

The OSCE Office in Baku supports Azerbaijan's commitments to promote good governance and to implement the President's Decree on the National Strategy on Increasing Transparency and Combating Corruption (2007). Since 2006, the Office has worked with Transparency International Azerbaijan in sponsoring Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres in the Sheki and Guba regions of the country. These centres promote good governance and the fight against corruption by providing citizens in the regions with access to legal advice on corruption complaints; advocacy, educational outreach, and mobile seminars on anti-corruption initiatives; as well as capacity-building among state authorities.

Environmental awareness-raising

Azerbaijan faces a number of environmental challenges - many dating back to the period before it became an independent state. While some of these challenges are local, others involve neighbouring states, most notably the safety of trans-boundary water sources for drinking and irrigation.

To help raise public environmental awareness and to promote civil society engagement in environmental protection in Azerbaijan, the OSCE Office in Baku supports the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources in running the Public Environmental Information Centres (Aarhus Centres) in Baku, Ganja and Gazakh. These centres provide the public with free access to an environmental library, internet resources and conference facilities. The Aarhus Centres constitute one of the Azerbaijani Government's instruments in implementing the UN ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention).

The OSCE Office in Baku also supports the incorporation of environmental issues into the school curriculum in Azerbaijan. The 'Green Pack' environmental teaching aid has been disseminated to approximately a thousand Azerbaijani schools, and more than a thousand teachers and pedagogy students have been trained to use it in their teaching assignments. In November 2008 the Green Pack was introduced also in Nakhchivan where training was provided to professors and students of the Nakhchivan State University.

Promotion of energy security

While Azerbaijan is rich in fossil energy resources such as oil and gas, the regions outside of the capital Baku still experience significant energy deficiencies. This not only threatens the environment as local populations resort to cutting down trees for fuel, but also hinders economic development in these regions. Increases in pollution and security risks stemming from rapid growth in the oil and gas sector, both in terms of extraction and transport, are also a growing cause for concern.

The OSCE Office in Baku and the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA), in co-operation with the Azerbaijani authorities, are working on an initiative to address oil spill preparedness in the Caspian Sea. In addition, the OSCE Office in Baku is in discussions with the Azerbaijani Parliament on exploring the use of renewable energy sources.