Your trusted source

Azerbaijan toughened the requirements for donor organizations. The Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan introduced the corresponding amendments to the decision “On the approval of the unified budget classification.” The foreign countries and their representations, financial and credit institutions, international organizations operating in the field of education, science, health, culture and sport, as well as the funds, associations, federations and committees, foreign natural persons may come up as donors only after obtaining the right to provide grants on the territory of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani information portal Haqqin.az reports.

According to the report, the majority of the non-governmental and opposition organizations in Azerbaijan are mainly financed by the Open Society institute founded by the American billionaire George Soros. 

Azerbaijani information agency Turan adds that the requirements regarding the grants are unchanged. They may be used in the field of education, science, health, culture and sport, rather than for getting direct revenue, for the purposes of struggling for political power, lobbying for laws and legislative acts to pass, for political advertisements, funding pre-electoral campaign of a political organization or a politician.

“The toughening of the policy regarding the foreign support to the local NGOs passed three stages in 2014: a series of restrictive amendments were introduced to the laws ‘On the non-governmental organizations (public unions and funds),’ ‘On grants,’ and other government acts. Those amendments resulted in serious restrictions to the activities of the foreign donors in Azerbaijan and shocked the work of the civil sector. Social, educational, medical, economic, and legal programs were blocked not being financed even by the government,” Turan writes.

The authorities think that the foreign funds’ activities in Azerbaijan target at inciting color revolutions. The head of the president administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, has repeatedly spoken about that. However, the head of the Economic Research Center, Gubad Ibadoglu, says that the authorities fear the activities of the NGOs as institutions of public control over the government ruling over the country which ranks 126th in the Corruption Perceptions Index, Turan writes.