Azerbaijan has experienced rapid revenue growth in recent years and the US Government is supporting efforts undertaken by the Government of Azerbaijan to ensure that this growth reaches Azerbaijani citizens in the regions. This support stems from the belief that increased citizen participation in regional social-economic development will ensure more efficient allocation of resources, will better address critical, daily problems, and will improve the quality of life in the regions. EWMI’s Socio-Economic Development Activity in Azerbaijan (SEDA) contributed to the advancement of socio-economic development at the regional level in Azerbaijan by providing support for community-driven socio-economic projects and strengthening stakeholder participation in setting priorities for socio-economic strategies and programs in the regions that SEDA targets and beyond.

Working in strategic partnership with the Azerbaijani Support to Social Development Public Union (UMID) and the Washington, D.C.-based International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), EWMI built upon on 15 years of work by USAID in Azerbaijan by expanding support to the communities and rayons in Azerbaijan that had not yet benefited from international developmental aid. To increase community participation in socio-economic development at the local and regional levels, SEDA revitalized and supported the establishment of Community Development Councils (CDCs) in more than 100 communities in the Aran, Guba-Khachamaz, and Ganja-Gazakh regions, and implemented 196 small scale socio-economic development projects in partnership with these communities. EWMI and its partners also provided technical assistance and funding to cohesive networks of non-governmental, governmental, and private sector stakeholders that work together on advancing citizen-driven regional socio-economic planning and development. To contribute towards the sustainability of such initiatives, SEDA supported the Government of Azerbaijan’s local and central institutions to develop and use an inclusive approach to socio-economic development. This included technical assistance for Government of Azerbaijani efforts to complete the regulatory framework for citizen participation at the local and central government level, as well as piloting of small scale public private partnerships.

The Socio-Economic Development Activity in Azerbaijan was a ten-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and co-financed by the Government of Azerbaijan.