Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan is not a member of the EITI.
On 10 March 2017 the Government of Azerbaijan decided to withdraw from the EITI following its suspension from the EITI Board at the 36th Board meeting the previous day.
The EITI has issued a statement regretting the withdrawal of Azerbaijan.
At the 35th Board meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan on 26-27 October Azerbaijan found to have made meaningful progress but more needing to be done, especially on civil society engagement. The Board's decision in full can be found here. The Board agreed that Azerbaijan is to be assessed in a third Validation commencing on 26 July 2017.
Following the Board’s decision at its 34th meeting in Oslo in June 2016, Azerbaijan was among fourteen other countries whose Validation commenced on 1 July 2016. It is the first country to be validated against the 2016 EITI Standard.
Background: In 2015, Azerbaijan had been downgraded to ‘candidate’ country at the 29th EITI Board meeting in Brazzaville following an early Validation report. The early Validation was called due to concerns about civil society representatives’ ability to operate freely. The Validation does not assess the 2013 EITI report which was finalised at the time of the Validation and was published in July 2015.
The EITI process in Azerbaijan is overseen by the EITI Committee (the MSG) that cosists of members of the government, civil society and companies [see this link for details]. The Committee is chaired by Shahmar Movsumov, CEO of the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ).
On 9 March 2017, the EITI Board decided that Azerbaijan did not meet the corrective actions as layed out in October at the previous Board meeting. It was therefore suspended.
On 26 October 2016, the EITI Board came to the following decision on Azerbaijan's status following its Validation:
The Board agrees that Azerbaijan has made meaningful progress in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard, and with considerable improvements across several individual requirements compared to the first Validation in 2015. Azerbaijan retains its candidate status, taking into consideration recent developments.
The EITI Board agreed that Azerbaijan had not made satisfactory progress on requirement 1.3 on civil society engagement. Accordingly, Azerbaijan will need to take corrective actions. Failure to take corrective actions to the satisfaction of the Board will result in suspension in accordance with the EITI Standard. The Board tasked the International Secretariat with preparing an assessment in advance of the next Board meeting. On the basis of this assessment and in accordance with the EITI Standard, the Board will take a decision at its next meeting.
Following the decision of the EITI Board, Azerbaijan must address corrective actions by March 2017 and will be validated again in July 2017.
Below is an overview of the progress Azerbaijan made per requirement.
The Government of Azerbaijan decided to withdraw from the EITI on 10 March 2017. This is the statement made by the government informing the EITI of its decision.
The EITI issued a statement in response.
The document can also be found on here Azerbaijan's oilfund website.
Related news coverage: http://ht.ly/ulth50a5Ae6
This Board Paper was presented at the 36th Board meeting in Bogota, Colombia (8-9 March 2017) as a basis for discussion on Azerbaijan's EITI status.
At its 35th meeting, the EITI Board requested Azerbaijan to undertake three corrective actions by the time of the next Board meeting in order to avoid suspension from the EITI. These corrective actions required undertaking legal and regulatory amendments to eliminate the need for (i) civil society to obtain an extract every two years confirming their registration;
Attached below is Azerbaijan's roadmap on how it intends to disclose the beneficial owners of the companies active in the extractives sector (requirement 2.5
More information on beneficial ownership can be found at eiti.org/beneficial-ownership
This report was published in January 2017.
View news item related to this report: Azerbaijan’s revenue from the extractives fell by 51% in 2015
Attached below is Azerbaijan's open data policy, published in December 2016.
Azerbaijan was validated in the fall of 2016. On October 26 2016, the EITI Board found that Azerbaijan had made meaningful progress with implementing the EITI Standard (2016) with considerable improvements across several requirements compared to the first Validation in 2015.
The following documentation laid the basis for the Board's decision, attached below:
Initial data collection by the International SecretariatValidation Report by the independent Validator SDSGComments made by stakeholders on both the initial data collection and the Validation Report
This is the report of the 2015 Validation of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Azerbaijan.
As laid out in the EITI 2013 Standard Validation Guide and based on the Validator Terms of Reference, this report reviews the seven EITI Requirements. Where provisions are expected, Validator has provided an assessment of either “met” or “unmet”, with the latter divided into two sub-assessments: “meaningful progress” – meaning that there has been some progress in EITI implementation,
