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Statement on Government of Azerbaijan's Withdrawal from EITI

14 March 2017
Topics
Global initiativesCivic space
Countries
Azerbaijan
Stakeholders
Government officialsCivil society actors
Precepts
P2 P12 What are Natural Resource Charter precepts?
Social Sharing
Last week the international board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) took the decision to suspend Azerbaijan because the country lacks an enabling environment for civil society, a violation of the initiative’s requirements on multi-stakeholder engagement and its civil society protocol. Following the suspension, the government of Azerbaijan regrettably withdrew from EITI and requested that Azerbaijan be removed from the list of implementing countries.
 
Civil society has always played a central role in EITI, and open civic space for public dialogue and effective accountability is a key component of any multi-stakeholder effort. The EITI board took the decision to suspend Azerbaijan—a temporary measure—only after several years of fact-finding, extensive deliberations, and numerous opportunities given to the government to address deficiencies related to civic space.
 
Azerbaijan has exceled at EITI’s technical reporting requirements for many years. However, in October 2014, concerns about the government’s poor compliance with EITI requirements on the enabling environment for civil society led the EITI board to request that Azerbaijan undertake an “early validation” against the EITI Standard. Following that assessment, in April 2015, Azerbaijan became the first country to be downgraded from “compliant” to “candidate” status in the EITI and remedial actions to address civic space restrictions were issued. Following a second validation, in October 2016, the EITI board found that Azerbaijan had not made satisfactory progress on the EITI Standard’s civil society engagement requirements and concrete corrective actions were again issued. The government failed to fully undertake those actions, resulting in last week’s suspension.
 
Prior to the government’s withdrawal from the initiative, a third validation was scheduled to take place on 26 July 2017. This constituted another opportunity for the government to improve civic space and enable its EITI process to function as a truly multi-stakeholder initiative, and to achieve EITI’s aim of improving the management of natural resource wealth for the public good.
           
Even outside of EITI, there is an opportunity for Azerbaijan to implement an enabling legal and practical environment for civil society to operate more freely, which includes enabling civil society organizations’ free access to funding and opening space for public debate. As important, actions such as releasing prisoners who have been unjustly arrested, convicted and incarcerated on false charges—including NRGI advisory council member Ilgar Mammadov—would constitute key steps in the right direction.
 
NRGI remains committed to continued engagement with stakeholders in Azerbaijan, especially civil society, reformers, and technical experts working on EITI and natural resource governance. Outreach and support to local actors is now more critical than ever.

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Helping people to realize the benefits of their countries’ endowments of oil, gas and minerals.
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  • Topics
    Beneficial ownership
    Civic space
    Commodity prices
    Contract transparency and monitoring
    Coronavirus
    Corruption
    Economic diversification
    Energy transition
    Gender
    Global initiatives
    Legislation and regulation
    Licensing and negotiation
    Mandatory payment disclosure
    Measurement of environmental and social impacts
    Measurement of governance
    Open data
    Revenue management
    Revenue sharing
    Sovereign wealth funds
    State-owned enterprises
    Subnational governance
    Tax policy and revenue collection
  • Approach
    • Stakeholders
    • Natural Resource Charter
    • Regional knowledge hubs
  • Priority
    Countries
    • Colombia
    • Dem. Rep. of Congo
    • Ghana
    • Guinea
    • Mexico
    • Mongolia
    • Nigeria
    • Peru
    • Senegal
    • Tanzania
    • Tunisia
    • Uganda
  • Learning
    • Training
    • Primers
  • Analysis & Tools
    • Publications
    • Tools
    • Economic models
  • About Us
    • What we do
    • NRGI impact
    • Board of Directors
    • Emeritus Board Members
    • Advisory Council
    • Leadership team
    • Experts and staff
    • Careers and opportunities
    • Grant-making
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    • Contact us
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