Azerbaijan

National website: gcap.az

National Coalition: Say No to Poverty

If you are interested in getting involved, please contact with Ms. Sanubar Nazarova, National Coordinator of the Azeri National Coalition within the GCAP Campaign through the following email address: snazarova@oxfam.org.uk

Background

Azerbaijan, one of three former Soviet republics that make up the Caucasus region, has an area of around 86,000 km2 and a population of 7,911,974 (July 2005). The Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan is separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by a strip of land and provides a narrow border with Turkey. Within Azerbaijan lies the Nagorno-Karabakh region, an enclave of approximately 150,000 Armenians, which is the cause of a long-standing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Border countries:
Armenia 787 km, Georgia 322 km, Iran 611 km, Russia 284 km, Turkey 9 km.

Baku, the capital city, is located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, and has a population of more than 2 million. The labor force of the republic is about 2.8 million and is broken down as follows, 32 % agriculture and forestry; 26 % industrial and construction; and 42 % other.
Ethnic Azerbaijanis make up 83 % of the population, with 6 % Armenian, 6 % Russian and 4 % from other ethnic groupings. Azerbaijanis are a Turkic people and have close links with Turkey and Iran. Three-quarters of the ethnic Azerbaijanis are Shiite Muslims and the remainders are Sunni.
Azerbaijan became independent in 1991 but the country's development has been hampered by many factors, one of which is the conflict with its neighbor Armenia. The reason for conflict, the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, has yet to be resolved and up to 20 % of the territory has been seized by the Armenians, displacing almost one million Azeris.

October 17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Stand Up Speak Out

07-07-07 Events

Azerbaijan National Coalition on Global Call To Actions Against Poverty (GCAP) celebrated public event devoted to the Millennium Development Goal’s (MDG) midway point on 31 July 2007 at the public TV’s big yard with the participation of famous celebrities, representatives of civil societies, INGOs, national parliament and governmental structures.

Actually the first shoot on the MDG’ halfway campaign started from the July 6, 2007 with the press conference reviewing the latest figures on progress towards the Goals worldwide.  Those who spoke at the conference said that the fulfillment of the goals were not satisfactory both in the world and Azerbaijan. They cited some statistics and figures from the UN report on the MDG issued in 2006. According to these statistics, 10.5 million children under 5 died in 2004 because of reasons that could be prevented, the number of people contracted HIV/AIDS increased from 36.2 million in 2003 to 38.6 million in 2005, 13 million hectare of areas were deforested for agriculture purposes etc.

In regard to the situation in Azerbaijan, particularly the fulfillment of the MDG 4 and 5 (reducing child and maternal mortality), WB’s ‘’Health Sector in Azerbaijan’’ report issued in 2005, runs that 81 newborn children out of 1000 and 92.2 children under 5 out of 1000 die every year, while 94 women pregnant or delivering babies out of 100.000 die in Azerbaijan annually. 

31 July public event, which was lively broadcasted for 2 hours, was the continuation of the conference and involving the divest group of participants urged them to debate on the current situation on the MDG 4 and 5.

Representatives of Ministry of Health, the State commission on Family, Women and Child Issues, Republican Children Fund expressed their hopes that the national government will be able to achieve these goals up to 2015. They stressed that the income form oil industry is going to strength the national budget and the government will clearly set up additional budget article on improvement the health system and effectively use the allocated expenditures. 

Representatives of different NGOs, the GCAP coalition members, independent experts, celebrities and audience said that much should be done in this country. Azerbaijan strongly lags behind meeting those goals and it is difficult to say that these goals will be met in 2015 and called on the government to take urgent measures to speed up health reforms in order to at least partly achieve MDGs in the country.  

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