A meeting for Potential Partners for an LDA in Azerbaijan is organised by ALDA in Strasbourg, on March 22. The meeting will take place at the Council of Europe in connection with the plenary session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities.
The meeting will gather interested local and regional authorities to discuss the possibility of a Local Democracy Agency in Azerbaijan.
The LDA in Azerbaijan will work to facilitate the participation of civil society and citizens in the decision-making process at the local level and to increase the sharing of information between Azerbaijan and other European countries and stakeholders to enable closer cooperation and an ongoing exchange of best practices for good governance at the local level.
In 2006 an LDA was opened in Kutaisi in Georgia and in October 2011 an LDA was opened in Gyumri, Armenia. So the LDA in Azerbaijan will also become part of a network of LDAs in South Caucasus that can facilitate cooperation and mutual understanding between the countries in South Caucasus.
A delegation from BINA – the NGO Alliance for Municipality Development from Azerbaijan will be in Strasbourg to participate in the meeting and hold meetings with the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. On Friday March 23 the BINA delegation will go to Brussels to hold meetings with the Committee of the Regions, European Commission and members of the European Parliament. They will among others meet with Mr. Ivo Vajgl and and Evgeni Kirilov, two MEPs who work actively on supporting stronger European cooperation with Azerbaijan and resolving the conflicts in South Caucasus.
Please find the agenda for the meeting attached here
For further background information about the LDA in Azerbaijan go here
BINA’s latest report monitoring local democracy in Azerbaijan can be found here.