Open Society Institute - Assistance Foundation / Azerbaijan

Structure

     The Open Society Institute - Assistance Foundation (OSI-AF) Azerbaijan is a non-governmental, non-profit organization established in 1997 to develop and promote an open society in Azerbaijan. The main source of funds for OSI-AF/Azerbaijan comes from investment entrepreneur and philanthropist George Soros.

George Soros took an active interest in the concept of Open Society in the 1940s, when he was at the London School of Economics. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary for England, where he graduated from the LSE. While a student of LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities. Soros saw Popper as his philosophical guru. Karl Popper was a committed follower of French philosopher Henri Bergson, a founder and most significant exponent of logical positivism. In his works, Bergson posited the reality, not the illusion, of freedom, as embodied, above all, in constructive diversity and based on the rule of law.

In 1945, Karl Popper published his famous book Open Society and Its Enemies, which he called his contribution to the war effort. He defines an "open society" as one which ensures that political leaders can be overthrown without the need for bloodshed, as opposed to a "closed society," in which a bloody revolution or coup d'etat is needed to change the leaders. Democracies are examples of an "open society," whereas totalitarian dictatorshpis and autocratic monarchies are examples of a "closed society”.

In 1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. After translating his economic plans into reality by creating a financial empire, George Soros, a consistent follower of K. Popper's ideas, went ahead with the fulfillment of his long cherished dream-organization of the Open Society Institute (OSI). Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he provided funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. National Soros foundations have been in operation as charity structures since 1984, while the Open Society Institute network was created in 1993. It was designed to support various initiatives during the transformation of the socialist system in Central and East European countries, as well as of the newly independent post-Soviet states. In addition, the OSI network comprises national foundations in some countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States. Today this structure operates in more than 50 countries of the world. The task of OSI national foundations is to build and facilitate the development of civil society institutions promoting the openness and accountability of governments to society and assisting the implementation of reform and modernization programs.
As a fervent, avowed opponent of totalitarianism in all of its manifestations, on the one hand, and of the chaos of market capitalism, on the other, George Soros emphasizes the need to counter authoritarian trends and strengthen the role of civil society in young, embryonic democracies.

The national Soros foundation in Georgia was established in 1994; the OSI-Azerbaijan and the OSl-Armenia foundations were created in 1997. Initially, the activity of these structures followed basically the same pattern, common to the entire Soros Foundations Network: support for the nascent civilian sector and financial assistance to intellectual resources which, following the breakup of the Soviet Union, were in a deplorable state. It is noteworthy that support of researchers and funding of research projects in both the public and the nongovernmental sector in Georgia and Armenia were more substantial and long term than in Azerbaijan-presumably, due to the country's better economic situation. Of course its scale was incomparable to support of Russian science, worth a total of S115 million during the period of the Foundation's activity in the Russian Federation (1995-2002), but even so it played a certain role in restraining the "brain drain" from the Southern Caucasus.
OSI programs in the region cover the SFN's traditional areas of activity: Civil Society, Education, Information, Law, Public Health, East-East, Culture and Arts, the Media, and the Women's program.

The activities of the OS I-Azerbaijan Foundation from the outset proceeded along two principal lines: education and information. In 1998-1999, operational projects were set up with budgets formed both in national foundations and SFN programs directed from Budapest and New York. These comprise civil society, including law, art, culture, public health, the mass media, self-government, and also the women's program. In connection with the presidential elections in Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the parliamentary elections io Georgia (2003), in the past two years the electoral process has been a priority area for the OSI South Caucasian national foundations. The operation of these national foundations, however, also has some distinguishing features. For example, in Georgia it is an economic reform program and in Azerbaijan, an oil revenue transparency program.
Whereas initially one of the OST's objectives in the region was development of the "third sector,17 in recent years its operation in each republic has been marked by the establishment of closer contacts between NGOs and the government, and sometimes also with business structures, in the interest of ensuring greater stability and effectiveness of regional activities.

For example, in Azerbaijan, jointly with the country's Ministry of Education and the World Bank, the OSI participates in a three-year high-school reform program, in particular by providing 6.5 percent of its $13.5 million budget, organizing expert appraisal of innovative textbooks, holding school grant competitions, and developing the information and communications technology system. Free Internet service centers have been created in a number of universities and rural schools. A new interactive training methodology is available even in kindergartens. The Baku Education and Information Center (BEIC) operates as an independent NGO. Similar centers exist in Armenia and Georgia. In Armenia, the OSIAF worked with higher education institutions and the Ministry of Education to create compatible education standards and disseminate electronic content throughout the school system.
A public-health school project is being implemented jointly with the Ministry of Health of Azerbaijan.

Under the Harm Reduction Development Program (HRDP), relating to drugs and other health issues, substitution therapy projects are being implemented, including, e.g. a syringe exchange program.
One of the first success stories has been the information and communications technology (ICT) development program. During the OSI' s operation in the Southern Caucasus, a large number of university Internet centers have been established and some libraries in the capital, as well as in the provinces, were provided with modem computers. The most ambitious and large scale ICT program in Azerbaijan is AzNET, aimed at setting up an educational and academic network covering the country's entire territory. Designed for three years, it is being implemented in collaboration with the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) and the National Academy of Sciences (AzREN A), with the Soros Foundation due to invest a total of $600,000.

OSI-AF/Azerbaijan implemented projects to facilitate the dissemination and enforcement of provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights: in particular, practical training sessions, devoted to principles of due process of law were organized for judges and prosecutors. Lately, special focus has been placed on building up capacity for public oversight of law enforcement operations which should proceed in strict compliance with Azerbaijan's international law obligations. In the course of the program's implementation, considerable experience has been gained in cooperating with the Police Academy, including the implementation of democracy oriented personnel training modules. Jointly with the UNDP, the country's Ministry of Justice received funding to create a civil registration record online. In all three republics, national Soros foundations support anti-corruption projects related to human rights. A women' s program is in place, comprising a network of crisis centers and projects to prevent violence against women and children.

Azerbaijan differs from the two other South Caucasian states in that it has substantial energy reserves which attract not only multinationals, but also independent oil companies. Yet oil, as is known, can be both a boon and a curse for the people producing it, as has been the case in many countries in Africa and Latin America. The problem of public oversight over oil revenues was first raised by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who, in September 2002, proclaimed the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). At a London conference, in July 2003, the initiative wassupported by Ilkham Aliev. iifbi deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan State Oil Company (now the country's president).

George Soros also shows intense interest in this issue. Thus he supported the Caspian Revenue Watch program, which aims to generate and publicize research, information, and advocacy on how revenues are being invested and disbursed and how governments and extraction companies respond to civic demands for accountability in the region. The CRW involves leading experts in the field: oil producers, economists, legal experts, environmentalists, etc. In May 2003, the Open Society Institute released areport calling for accountability, transparency, and public oversight in the oil and natural gas industries of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The report Caspian Oil Windfalls: Who Will Benefit? became a notable event in our state's public life. Its presentation was attended by George Soros, who met with the country's president, Heydar Aliev, emphasizing the importance of the project. He revisited the program in 2004, at a meeting of members of OSI boards in the CIS and Eastern Europe in Budapest.
Under this program, an NGO coalition was created in Azerbaijan, which opened negotiations with the State Commission on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and with oil companies on signing a memorandum on requirements and procedures for informing the public about government oil revenues. It is important to note that this was an unprecedented event-in effect, the first such experience in the world. Another broad NGO coalition, supported by OSI-Azerbaijan, has formed five expert groups and- under an agreement between OSI-Azerbaijan and British Petroleum (operator of the Baku-Tbilisi-Cey-han pipeline), assisted by the international NGO Catholic Relief Services-is going to start monitoring this oil pipeline project.

All of the aforesaid might create an idyllic picture of complete mutual understanding and constructive cooperation between OSI national foundations and government structures. This, however, is far from the case. The elections which took place in all South Caucasian republics in 2003, highlighting the confrontation between the ruling authorities and civil society, are clear demonstration of this. Georgia ended up with a change of political regime, for which, according to President Eduard Shevardnadze, George Soros was to blame. Yet before judging of the legitimacy of such accusations, it would be appropriate to take a closer look at the problem from the "inside"-that is to say, from the point of view of the tasks that faced the national Soros foundations in the region, and the extent to which they coped with these tasks.

First of all. it should be noted that the budgets of all three national foundations did not provide (and eould not possibly have provided) separate line-item funding of election programs or individual candidates' activities, but only of civil sector development as a whole. The main task, common to all the three national Soros foundations under the public initiative support program in these elections, was to support NGOs in organizing the monitoring of this process, including the provision of citizens with information about the elections and election procedures, gathering information about violations that occurred in the election process, and promoting public debate in print and electronic media outlets.

Contrary to Azerbaijan, the existing juridical base and socio-political situation in Georgia created favorable conditions for NGO’s to provide comprehensive and effective monitoring on the day of elections. The political situation in Georgia drastically differed from that in Azerbaijan and Armenia. Civil society that has precisely formulated its civic duties showed itself. At the same time, it was clear to Georgians and international organizations that the Georgian elite, the most vulnerable in the South Caucasus, was confused and unable to rule the country. Moreover, people considered change of power as the only way out of hard economic situation, therefore all claims regarding the role of George Soros in Georgian events are, at least, unfounded.

There is much to say about George Soros, a pragmatic financier, romanticist and philosopher. But there is no denying that in his activity in all post-Soviet countries and, especially, in the South Caucasus, of which until recently he little knew, his benefit was rather moral, than pragmatic.

Irada Bagirova
Doctor of History, OSI-AF Board Chair