COUNCIL MEETINGS Coalition EITI(November 25, 2005)
- To disseminate the coalition’s explanations and statements not only in the press after the auditors’ opinions are announced, but also in the form of a booklet;
- To inform the media not only about oil contracts, but also about the EITI;
- To extend the list of courses for journalists;
- To conduct a weekly campaign called “Oil profits belong to all of us”;
- To hold meetings within the framework of the public campaign “Oil profits belong to all of us” and to make and hand out to the population special marks, sacks, T-shirts, hats and so on within the framework of the campaign;
- To conduct public hearings within the framework of the campaign;
- To allocate one hour of airtime on one of the TV channels once a week (a month);
- To prepare special programs on local TV channels in regions;
- To increase the number of the coalition’s members;
- The action plan provides for a lot of things and it will be impossible even for the members of the coalition to implement all this. It is necessary to simplify the plan, to determine the priority directions of the coalition’s activities for the next year and present projects only on those directions. The administrative expenses of the coalition should be divided between those projects;
- The action plan is a good document in order to start negotiations with donors;
- The action plan should cover 2005-08. It is necessary to determine priority directions for each year and prepare projects compatible with them;
- It is not enough for the coalition only to participate in the selection of an audit company and make some notes after the opinion of the audit company is announced. It is important to inform the public and use different means for that – television, papers, rallies, public hearings, etc. The second important direction is to control expenses. It is necessary to determine whether to start it next year or not. Another direction could be an audit at SOCAR and reforms there.
Taking into account that there might be many proposals, it was suggested that several days be allocated for studying the action plan more deeply and collecting proposals. The following proposals were made in connection with the project to be submitted to donors:
- To group activities mentioned in the action plan in the form of blocks and to calculate the approximate budget of each block;
- To note while presenting the action plan to the donors that the projects will be calculated by individual blocks;
- To prepare the projects in directions envisaged by the action plan;
- To take the action plan as a basis and to prepare the future projects on its basis;
- To send the action plan prepared as a basis to all the members of the coalition in the future and ask them to prepare projects on activities envisaged by the document and submit them to the council;
- To note while presenting the action plan to the donors that individual projects will be prepared on directions envisaged there;
- The coalition cannot carry out all the work envisaged by the action plan within one or two years. For this reason, it is necessary to determine the main priorities of the coalition’s activities for the next one or two years and prepare projects on the basis of these priorities;
- All the work envisaged by the action plan cannot be implemented as one project. The projects should be prepared on the basis of individual directions noted in the action plan;
- To approve the action plan and prepare projects within a week on the implementation of activities envisaged there;
- The projects that will be presented should be prepared not on the basis of donors’ wishes, but on the basis of problems the coalition regards as a priority;
- Projects to be prepared in line with the action plan should cover priority spheres and they should be in the interests of the coalition. To present the donors with a package of projects and they should select and finance a project (projects) that are in line with their strategy.
Decision:
a) To group activities noted in the action plan into blocks within three days and to calculate an approximate financial assessment of each block. To present the action plan and an institutional project on the administrative expenses of the coalition.
b) To appeal to the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation, the donor organization of the project, to finance the second main part of the project on increasing the regional public’s awareness of the activities of the Azerbaijani extractive industries and to cover the administrative expenses of the coalition for three months.
