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Azerbaijani NGO Support Council: Overview of Th ree
Years of Activity
Mahammad Guluzade and Natalia Bourjaily 1
Executive Summary
In 2007, the Government of Azerbaijan established a Council on State Support to Non -governmental
Organizations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan 2 (hereinaft er the “NGO Support
Council”), with an aim to provide support to local NGOs. Three years into its activities, the NGO
Support Council is now known for providing financial support to Azerbaijani NGOs, and for serving as a
forum for NGOs to raise concerns ov er legislation and other matters of social and public importance.
The NGO Support Council serves as an important and usually helpful mediator between NGOs, the
government, and society at large. The NGO Support Council distributed around seven million USD i n
grants during 2008 -2010 to more than 750 NGO projects. Despite its meaningful impact, though, the
NGO Support Council has not addressed all the needs and issues faced by Azerbaijani NGOs.
This article provides an overview of the NGO Support Council’s act ivities over the past three years. It
seeks to look at whether it has achieved the goals for which it was established, to identify problems
faced by the council, and to provide recommendations on possible improvements for its future work.
Background
Azerba ijan is an oil -rich former USSR country that obtained its independence in 1991. For years the
Azerbaijani Government was also known to international community because of its unfriendly attitude
towards NGOs and civil society at large. During that time, NGO s survived on foreign grants, and this
became a source of friction between NGOs and the government. The Azerbaijani Government treated
NGOs as if they were foreign agents or spies. NGOs and the government saw each other only as
opponents. For years, regist ration of an indigenous NGO was almost impossible in Azerbaijan. In four
cases, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Azerbaijan to be in violation of Article 11
(freedom of association) of the European Convention on Protection of Human Rights an d Fundamental
Freedoms. 3 In recognition of the ECHR’s rulings, the Government of Azerbaijan has improved the
process of NGO registration and has begun to settle issues rela ting to registration in favor of NGOs
and their founders. 4 The Azerbaijani Government’s attitude started to change also due to its new
membership in the Council of Europe and exposure to Western models of NGO -government
interaction. The Government of Azerbaijan manifested the change in its attitude towards NGOs by
starting to register new NGOs. By 2007, more than 2,500 5 NGOs were registered in Azerbaijan. When
the government saw that the expanded number of NGOs did not cause politic al unrest, it implemented
the next step: the President approved the Concept for State Support to Non -governmental
Organizations (hereinafter the “Concept”), 6 which provided a legal basis for governmental support of
civil society in Azerbaijan. The Concept was designed to make government funding more accessible to
Azerbaijani NGOs, as compared to foreign grants.
Before deciding on how to provide financing to NGOs, the Azerbai jani Government studied
international best practices, in particular the experiences of Hungary and Croatia. On 13 December
2007, following a study tour and a period during which it conducted comparative research, the
President of Azerbaijan signed a decree on establishing a Council for State Support to NGOs, a body
designed to serve as a “bridge” between NGOs and state bodies, as well as a vehicle to provide
financial support to NGOs in Azerbaijan. The President also approved the regulations on the NGO
Supp ort Council, 7 a document that outlines the council’s status and main procedures.
According to the regulations, the NGO Support Council was entrusted with the right to develop
proposals to improve the state policy in regard of NGOs and submit them to the President; and to
provide consultative, methodical, logistic, financial, and other type of assistance to NGOs. 8

In addition to provision of financial support to Azerbaijani NGOs, the NGO Support Council has already
proven to be an important advocate for N GOs interests. The council played a significant role in
preventing adoption of legislation that was initiated by the Government of Azerbaijan, and originally
designed to restrict activities of NGO, in 2009. 9 It is currently advocating with the Government for
simplification of financial reporting requirements for NGOs, and providing technical support to NGOs,
helping them to comply with complex financial reporting.
Establishi ng NGO Support Council
The NGO Support Council was established as a result of the President’s Decree of 13 December 2007.
It is designed to represent both the government and NGOs. As such, it is composed of eleven
members, all of whom are appointed by the President of Azerbaijan (eight members are nominated by
non -governmental organizations and one member from each of the three state bodies: the Ministry of
Justice, the Ministry of Finance, and the President’s Office). The NGO Support Council’s members are
appointed to four -year terms and cannot hold these positions for more than two consecutive terms.
They do not get paid from the state budget and work on a voluntary basis. The members of the
council elect from among themselves a chairman, deputy chairman, and secretary. The legislation
requires that the members meet certain requirements to prove their competence: (i) they must
possess a university degree; and (ii) they must have reputation in the society and high moral values.
The present chairman of the co uncil is an influential deputy and prominent civil society figure who is
providing strong leadership and relative political independence in the council’s decision making,
despite the fact that all of the council’s funding comes from the state budget. His l eadership helped
the NGO Support Council gain trust among NGOs in Azerbaijan as well as international organizations.
Many international organizations, such as the World Bank, UNDP, USAID, and OSI, have been
cooperating with the NGO Support Council, includi ng co -funding joint projects.
Grants to NGOs
The main function of the NGO Support Council is to provide financial support to NGOs via grants. It
distributed around seven million USD in grants during 2008 -2010 to support more than 750 NGO
projects. Grants c ompetitions are held several times a year. The NGO Support Council supports NGO
activities in a broad variety of areas, from defending human rights and free legal aid, to social –
economic development and environmental protection. Only Azerbaijani NGOs can a pply for grants.
The council’s grant competition is normally announced one month prior to date of submission of
project proposals, and contains detailed competition rules. Applications can be submitted by mail or in
person.
The evaluation of the projects s ubmitted to the NGO Support Council is carried out in three stages:
1. Preliminary selection of the project proposals by the Council’s Secretariat, which mostly
checks the conformity of the project with the competition rules.
2. Evaluation of the project proposa l expertise by contracted experts. The experts evaluate
the projects on a score -based system according to the evaluation sheet approved by the
NGO Support Council. Each project is codified by the NGO Support Council and evaluated
by three independent exper ts.
3. Final decision of the NGO Support Council on the project proposals. The eleven members
of the Council discuss each project proposal individually and make their decision in view
of the experts’ opinion. The secretariat then places information about winn ing
organizations on its webpage and notifies them individually by mail.

Those NGOs whose project proposals were not successful can appeal to the NGO Support Council
within ten days from the time the decision is made. Appealing NGOs are invited to the coun cil to
familiarize themselves with the expert opinions on their project proposal. In practice, very few NGOs
use this appeal mechanism (out of 984 proposals rejected by the Council, only 57 were
appealed) 10 because (i) according to NGOs, evaluations of project proposals are conducted rather
impartially and NGOs trust the final decision of the NGO Support Council; (ii) chances are slight that
an NGO might win an appeal and NGOs do not wish to damage their “rel ationship” with the NGO
Support Council as they plan to apply for grants in the future. So far, there was only one case where
an organization won its appeal.
Overall, the procedure of conducting competitions for grants has been impartial and transparent.
NGOs interested in this source of funding have been closely monitoring the work of the NGO Support
Council. So far, NGOs initiated two cases against the council’s withdrawal of the decision on financing
their proposals, when these NGOs accused the council o f an unjustified budget cut. These cases are
still pending in court.
An important and perhaps most problematic part of the NGO Support Council’s work is monitoring the
implementation of projects supported through grants. During its first grant competition in 2008, the
NGO Support Council provided funding to 191 NGOs. When the secretariat began monitoring the
financed projects, it was discovered that some ten percent of NGOs did not submit their project
reports on time, and several NGOs could not be reached at the contacts provided to the NGO Support
Council. Having felt “cheated,” the NGO Support Council became more rigorous in the selection of
grants submitted by local NGOs. Analyses of the subsequent grant rounds demonstrate that at
present, the NGO Suppor t Council mostly finances the projects of well -established NGOs whom they
“trust.”
Conclusion and recommendations
The establishment of the NGO Support Council in Azerbaijan was an impetus for strengthening and
further development of NGOs in the country. It did not become a government tool to manipulate civil
society through funding, as some foreign observers had feared when the NGO Support Council was
established. Moreover, successful media coverage of NGO activity sponsored by the council helped
improve NG Os’ public image among society in general.
The NGO Support Council has not replaced foreign funding in some areas, but rather provides
important supplementary funding in areas of society that were not previously supported by any
funder, including patriotis m, national traditions and customs, and propaganda for Azerbaijan’s position
in Karabakh conflict. Getting funding from the NGO Support Council does not require knowledge of a
foreign language, and proposal and reporting requirements are often much simpler than similar
requirements imposed by foreign donors. These distinctions, along with the generally very small sizes
of grants, are not typically attractive to many beneficiaries of foreign grants, which allows small,
indigenous organizations to benefit fro m the funding.
In practice, the NGO Support Council provides many types of support, not all of which are specifically
prescribed by its bylaws, such as helping groups to register NGOs. The registration process for NGOs
remains bureaucratic and politicized in Azerbaijan.
The main challenge for the NGO Support Council is its inability to meet the needs of NGOs with its
limited budget. The council is financed by the state budget of Azerbaijan and there is no basis for it to
generate funds from other sources. In Croatia, for example, a similar institution (the National
Foundation for Civil Society Development) is financed through private donations, income from
economic activity, and other sources (a percentage from money collected through lotteries and
gambling ).11 Single -source funding makes the NGO Support Council vulnerable to political pressure as
to which NGOs are financially supported and which are not. So far, because of its strong leadership,
the NGO Support Council has been impartial in its decision making. However, unless sources of
funding are diversified, this may not be the case for much longer.

1 Mahammad Guluzade is Senior Legal Adviser for Newly Independent States for the International
Center for Not -for -Profit Law (ICNL) and a lecturer in NGO Law at Baku State University. Natalia
Bourjaily is ICNL’s Vice -President for the NIS.
2 See their official web -page at www.cssn.gov.az
3 The cases are Ramazanova v. Azerbaijan , Ismailov v. Azerbaijan , Nasibova v. Azerbaijan , and Aliyev
and others v. Azerbaijan .
4 Mahammad Guluzade and Natalia Bourjaily, The NGO Law: Azerbaijan Loses Another Case in
the European Court ,IJNL , Volume 12, Issue 3, May 2010.
5 According to Mr. Ilgar Mammadov, Head of Registration and Public Notary Main Dep artment of the
Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan, there were 2,612 registered NGOs in Azerbaijan as of 14 December
2010. Round -table “Annual financial reporting of NGOs in Azerbaijan: problems and perspectives,” 14
December 2010, Baku.
6 Decree on Approvin g a Concept for State Support to Non -governmental Organizations, approved by
the President of Azerbaijan, dated 27 July 2007, available at www.cssn.gov.az .
7Regulations on the Council of State Support to Non -Governme ntal Organizations under the President
of the Republic of Azerbaijan, approved by President’s Decree # 674 of 13 December 2007, available
at www.cssn.gov.az .
8 Ibid, para. 2.3.
9 See Analysis of Proposed Amendments to the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan on Non –
governmental Organizations (Public Associations and Foundations) , ICNL, 16 June 2009, available
at www.icnl.org .
10 ICNL obtained these statistics directly from the NGO Support Council in January 2011.
11 Katerina Hadzi -Miceva, Legal and Institutional Mechanisms for NGO -Government
Cooperation in Croa tia, Estonia, and Hungary , IJNL , Volume 10, Issue 4, August 2008.