Mr Hamid Khalilov, the head of the Centre for Monitoring of and Education on Socioeconomic Rights, addressed the audience on the oil incomes to be earned by Azerbaijan, and the management of the assets of the Oil Fund. The opening speech was given by Mr Asgar Ahmad, the head of the Democratic Values Protection Fund, who provided an insight into the topic and informed participants of the significance of the event, as well as EITI process itself, history of establishment and operation of the coalition Increasing Transparency in Extractive Industries. The remaining part of the meeting was devoted to the Q&A session.

According to Mr Asgar Ahmad, also one of the project co-ordinators, the audience was mainly interested in the following topics: ways of management of oil incomes so that they will benefit the well-being of future generations; the ongoing situation with crude oil production at SOCAR; spending priorities with respect to the accumulations at the State Oil Fund; reasons for Azerbaijan’s small shareholding interest in major production-sharing agreements; the leverages which the coalition ITEI can exert over the Government of Azerbaijan on the effective use of oil incomes; assessment of whether petrodollars are used to the purpose or misused; the extent to which the threat of Dutch disease become realistic to Azerbaijan; the possible role of petrodollars in the lives of young people. The topics raised broad discussions.

Participating in the event were more than 30 activists from local NGOs, as well as teachers’, municipality and students’ circles in Mingachevir.