Working in a dramatic political context over the last year LINKS has tried to both consolidate some of the work that it has been engaged with for a number of years, but also to think further afield in response to the challenges faced by the new global situation. Our contribution to the huge challenges facing humanity is modest and reflects the size of the organisation and its capacity.
We successfully launched our work in Turkey with a Partnership project with the Committee on European Affairs of the Turkish Parliament focusing on that country's accession process to the EU.
LINKS continues to support the process of the South Caucasus Parliamentary Initiative through the provision of a special advisor to the rotating presidency of this framework, through support for the Secretariat and through work with the rotating presidencies. The Fourth Plenary Assembly held in Dublin in July 2005 was a huge success. The Presidium of SCPI, meeting in Tbilisi in January 2006, adopted a number of important decisions outlining the way forward for SCPI. In May 2006 the Georgian Presidency of SCPI successfully organised a conference in Berlin focusing on the South Caucasus and the Challenges of Globalisation and the Fifth Plenary Assembly of SCPI was held in London in July 2006. We are engaged in a constant dialogue with the Parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia on a wide range of issues.
We contributed to the political debate in Azerbaijan in the run up to the 2005 elections through two series of televised debates that offered an opportunity to a wide range of speakers from different political parties to express their opinion free on live television.
We ran a project entitled “Increasing the participations of the young generation in the 2005 Parliamentary Elections in Moldova” in the period January-April 2005. The project sought to address concerns regarding the participation of young people in the 6th March Parliamentary elections by working to increase the participation of the young generation in the elections at all levels: through increased youth participation in the election campaign, work of the political parties and local election monitoring organisations, as well as by increasing the number of young people who actually turn out to vote.
We launched this project in 2006 and it is designed to develop a process of openness in the Azerbaijani Parliament through a programme of interaction between the Parliament, media, civil society and wider society. The project seeks to help make it become a more effective institution in the process of scrutinizing the work of the executive, in developing legislation, and to serve as the foremost institution in Azerbaijan for discussion of political issues.
We ran a series of project with youth NGOs in Azerbaijan in the run up to the 2005 Parliamentary Elections.
We did a limited monitoring exercise on the elections in Azerbaijan and provided the international community with useful insights on the political process.
Dissemination of information on our areas of expertise. This included media work and restricted briefing papers. Responding to requests from institutions such as the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Council of Europe and others our Executive Director presented reports to meeting in Paris, London, Yerevan and Baku on a variety of issues.
LINKS began work in November 2006 with the Parliament in North Cyprus to enable it to play a role in the process of political and economic reform in North Cyprus.
Political monitoring focusing primarily on pre and post election periods and electoral processes. This took place in Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan.
We continue to contribute to the process of peaceful resolution of the Nagorny Karabakh conflict through our participation in the Consortium Initiative and through our interaction with a wide range of international governmental and non governmental organisations and local NGOs working on this issue
We ran successfully a project between the Parliaments of Georgia and Latvia aimed at enhancing the role of the Georgian Parliament in the process of EU harmonisation.
We remained engaged with NGOs in Chechnya and in June 2005 hosted in Nazran a meeting for 40 NGO activists from the republic.
We ran a series of high profile policy seminars in Azerbaijan focusing on the country's foreign policy objectives.
In the framework of the Consortium Initiative we held in Yerevan a seminar for NGO activists interested in the European Neighbourhood Policy.
We worked with a wide range of NGOs in our target countries - LINKS remains first and foremost a network and our partners are an essential part of our work.
