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 Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan realizes by stages a large activity program on Referendum to be held on March 18, 2009. In this connection ACSDA Election Headquarters launched intensive activity from January 10 to realize the monitoring of referendum preparation stage, referendum day and post referendum processes. Observation of the activity of 15 newspapers and 4 TV channels is realized in the course of monitoring process. |
 The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) attained a success in the financial aid contest of the Council of State Support to Non-Governmental Organizations under the President of Azerbaijani Republic. The duration of the project “Burst of voters’ activity in presidential and municipal elections, organization of enlightenment to contribute to hold transparent elections” is 5 months (August – December 2008). The project aims at eliminating the problems existing in the sphere of civil society development, democratic elections, contributing to democratic reforms in this sphere, and promoting expansion of integration to the West. The goals also involve effective usage of peoples’ opportunities, as well as to contribute to increasing of their roles in the life of society. The realization of Action Plan signed with European Union also includes the priorities of the project. |
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Organization of Specialists Educated Abroad Azerbaijan (AKTAM) and the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) have drafted a bill “On educational credits” and submitted it to the Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic. The purposes of the drafted bill are the establishment of state assistance system for increasing equal opportunities and guaranties for educational credits, effective economic mechanisms of financing higher professional education and getting qualitative education The bill consists of 4 sections and 20 items. The sections have been devoted to common regulations, agreement on educational credits, financing the expenses on state support to the educational credits and state assistance to the transfer of education to a credit system. The purposes and a controlled object of the bill, as well as its basic conceptions have been indicated in the items of section 1 named “Common regulations”.
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CaspiLog 2 (Caspian Dialog) was held on 7-9 May 2007 at Aqua Park, Novkhani. CaspiLog2 was organized by the Processes of International Negotiation (PIN) Program of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), in cooperation with the Caspian Partnership for the Future Public Union (CPF) and Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA). Diplomats, politicians and scientists from Europe, United States and Canada, Post-soviet area attended the conference. Important issues related to Caspian Sea such as status of Caspian Sea, security and environmental issues were discussed during the conference. This included the problems of cooperation (political and economic) of European countries, United States and Canada with Caspian littoral countries.
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The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) considers that the rate of reforms in the country, as well as democratization and society’s development depend on the development of science, including public science in Azerbaijan. Therefore, the Association starts publishing the "Today & Tomorrow. Azerbaijan in Focus" monthly socio-political journal devoted to the problems of civil society and world of politics and science. The journal is published in two languages: Azerbaijani and English. The journal includes following sections: "analytics", "dialogue of civilizations", "politics", "geopolitics", "civil society" and "projects in science". Although new headlines will be opened in the future, many depend on the range of the articles subject-matter.
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On April 7, Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) and Azerbaijan Free Speech Foundation (AFSF) held an event, connected with 100 years anniversary of "Molla Nasraddin" magazine. "Molla Nasraddin" was first published in Tabriz in 1906. Persian articles in 8 editions of this magazine were translated into Azeri and published in 300 copies, by the initiative of ACSDA and AFSF. In parallel, the web site of "Molla Nasraddin" magazine was prepared – www.mollanesreddin.azfreespeech.org.
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On August 22, 2005, the Association For Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) and Public Association “Protection of Rights of Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons in Azerbaijan” (PRMIDA) held the Round Table on "The Aggressive policy of Armenia and its intrigues" in the International Press Center on the occasion of the anniversary of the occupation of Jabrayil, Fuzuli and Gubadly regions. Participants of the Round Table have accepted the appeal to the international organizations, engaged in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and the public.
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The next project of Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) was connected with repeated parliamentary elections, held in our country on May 13, 2006. ACSDA participated in the elections as an observer together with Association for Civic Initiative for Free and Democratic Elections NGO and "Transparent Elections Monitoring Center". Civic Initiative for Free and Democratic Elections was created on May 9 in 1990 in Sophia, the capital of Bulgaria. Civic Initiative for Free and Democratic Elections (CIFDE) is leading organization in Bulgaria that conducts sociologic surveys and exit polls top important for civil society development. During its activity CIFDE has conducted more than hundred Exit Polls, Quick Counts and other such successful researches. Representatives of CIFDE as observers took part in elections in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro.
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Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) held a round table on “9/11 terror: let’s think together”. As we know, the terror acts happened in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in the US, New York caused a terrible shock all over the world. This bloodstained tragedy changed people’s attitude to terror and terrorism.
It became obvious that terror is not a mean to achieve a goal, but an inhuman method for making people to live in threat, stress, in short, for setting up alarm. Just for this reason, the forces struggling against terrorism set up Anti-Terror Coalition. Azerbaijan, facing Armenian terror several times, also joined the mentioned Coalition. To stop and to prevent from terrorism is one of the debatable issues of the mankind.
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On 18-20 April, Fund of Monitoring of Ecological Standards of Azerbaijan (FMESA) took enlightening measures on "Bird Flu" in Khachmaz region, together with Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA). Within the frames of these measures discussions were held among the teachers and pupils of Khachmaz on struggle ways from bird flu. Representatives of the commission on bird flu, specialists of corresponding local institutions of Siyazan and Davachi, as well as specialists from NGOs and mass media held a wide-range round table on April 19, 2006. The round table was aimed at enlightening public about bird flu issues.
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A round table discussion dedicated to the subject of “Employment problems of the Azerbaijanis studied abroad” was held today at IPC by the Organization of Professionals Studied outside Azerbaijan (OPSOA) and ACSDA (Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan). According to OPSOA chairman Natig Aliyev who opened the event with the opening remarks, the problem of the employment of the Azerbaijanis studying abroad has been one of the actual problems at the time of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. In that period, the ADR parliament has adopted a decision for 100 university applicants to study abroad. England, Italy, France, Turkey, Russia were among these countries. Italy and France had preponderance amongst these countries.
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The next round table of the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) was dedicated to “Relations between municipalities and mass-media: on development and problems”. Generally, municipalities’ information about legislature, the present activity of municipalities, as well as, their cooperation ties with mass media and TV Channels were discussed in the event.
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The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) started to publish the journal ““Azerbaijan Municipality System” from January, 2007. The above mentioned journal will be published 4 times a year and will play a great role for municipalities to meet modern standards in their activity. The journal is considered for municipality members, specialists and investigators, as well as for every person, interested in the development and problems of this system. Azerbaijan Republic laws on municipalities and other normative documents, as well as, scientific-theoretical and practical articles of well-known scientists will be issued in every edition of the journal. This is the first scientific-theoretical and practical edition, interested in development of Azerbaijani local government system. The editor-in-chief of the journal is Vugar Tofigli.
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Round table on “31 March is One of the Genocide Dates of Azerbaijan History” was held in International Press Center by organization of the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) on March 27. The point of attention in the round table is to investigate aim of genocides against Azerbaijani people for ages and to bring the essence of these events to the public’s notice. Paying attention to Armenian chauvinists’ genocide policy with support of grate states against Azeri people and 30-31 March 1918 tragedy, as well as informing the world community of these events is one of the ACSDA’s activity directions.
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On February 26, 1992, Armenian terrorists attacked on innocent people of Khojali with the help of former US soldiers and officers of 366th regiment. Hundreds of people were killed notwithstanding age or sex. Armenian aggressors didn't take pity on women, children, even the old. Several Khojali people froze on the way to Agdam, running away from these aggressors. Khojali tragedy strained Qarabaq conflict and aroused much more hatred in Azerbaijani people against Armenian aggressors.
The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) started a wide-range action in this direction to achieve international legal appraisal for Khojali genocide, announcing 2006 "Garabag Year". Within the frames of this action the Association began to gather signatures of millions of Azerbaijanis, living inside or abroad.
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The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan held a lesser-scale, but important surveys and actions in its activity. One of them is the idea, put forward by the representatives of the Association’s member-NGOs and intellectual workers, of re-comprehending the important national liberation movement of “20 January” events in Azerbaijan, which was proposed to be declares as the day of “National pride.”
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ACSDA held a large-scale survey on “Municipal elections in Azerbaijan.” Choosing municipalities as the subject of inquiry, we decided that it was important to involve every citizen in the administration process. During the survey, we tried to find out what the citizens expect from municipalities, which measures should be taken to increase the level of efficiency of bodies of local self-government and other aspects.
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One of the initiatives put forward by the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan is the large-scale international campaign to confer the status of a “hero-city” on Baku. The role of Azerbaijanis, Baku oil and Baku oilmen is huge in the victory over Fascism. About 600 000 Azerbaijanis voluntarily went to the battlefield during World War II. 300 thousands of them sacrificed their lives to gain the Glorious Victory. Baku oilmen produced 80% of the overall volume of oil production in the home front. In spite of all these, the governing bodies of the USSR refused to award Baku with the status of “hero-city.” We have addressed the prominent leaders of the society and got the support to restore the historical justice.
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The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan held a large-scale sociological survey on “365 days of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency” in August-December, 2004. The basic goals of the given survey were to define tendencies formulated during the government of the new president, reveal the basic problems of the society and seek their solution ways. We found out the opinion and mood of the population on different questions in the course of the survey, by determining the circle of problems that concern the population most of all, tried to create a particular bridge between the mass and the government.
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