A thirteen person delegation of Members of Parliament of Azerbaijan headed by the Deputy Speaker Valekh Alesgerov arrives in London today at the start of a five day visit to the United Kingdom organised by LINKS in the framework of a two year project to build up the capacity of the Azerbaijan Parliament. The project is funded by the Global Opportunities Fund (Engaging with the Islamic World strand) of the FCO and started in August 2006.
During its visit to the UK, the Parliamentary Delegation of Azerbaijan will call on HRH The Duke of York at Buckingham Palace, will meet the Minister of Energy Malcolm Wicks, will visit the House of Parliament where they will also meet members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Other meetings are planned at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the delegation will also have an opportunity to share views with representatives of civil society.
The aim of the LINKS project is to help the Azerbaijan Parliament oversight of the Executive branch of government, whilst at the same time making the parliament itself more accountable, by opening up its work to closer public scrutiny.
The project is working with two committees of the Parliament – the Economic Affairs Committee and the Human Rights Committee. Through the project and for the first time the Committees held public conferences in which Ministers were called to report on their performance in the previous year. The project will next year also introduce the concept of public hearings by these two committees and pilot programmes are scheduled for the spring.
The project has also been instrumental in opening up the work of parliament to greater public scrutiny. It helped develop a new parliament web page. For the first time study visits by groups of students from the regions of Azerbaijan to the parliament have been organised enabling a new type of inter-action between MPs and their constituents. Hundreds of young people have already participated in this programme which is expected to continue next year. The project is also helping the parliament to develop the Hansard/Official Record through a programme of co-operation with the Scottish Parliament. The project also organised training for lobby journalists.
Students from Celilbad visit theParliament of Azerbaijan
For more information you may contact:
In London: Finlay MacDonald on +442075209308
In Baku: George Simonishvili (Acting Head of the LINKS Delegation to Azerbaijan) on
+994 55 6309755.
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