Gubad Ibadoglu: "Azerbaijan has less space for business and civil society"

The founder of the Center for Economic Research Professor Gubad Ibadoglu believes that the opportunities for the development of business and civil society in Azerbaijan have been steadily diminishing. With a report on this subject, he spoke in London at the I Summit " Open Government Initiative " c involving more than 1 million members in 61 countries. Azerbaijan was represented by government officials - the head of the ASAN service of the state agency for services to citizens and social innovation under the Presidency Inam Karimov and the Secretary of the Commission against Corruption Vusal Huseynov.

On peculiarities of the local reporting Ibadoglu told through the monitoring of the "National Action Plan to promote open government in the years 2012-15" approved by the President. "Three years for this kind of project is unrealistic, their performance should be an annual event. Some obligations of the authorities are not viable, being without address or technical in nature and do not overlap with the priorities of open government," said the economist.

According to him, not only the local executive power, but also the central authorities know little about the nature of open government, which creates additional obstacles for monitoring. "Only two official agencies, the heads of which are present at the Summit, are interested in reform, and the others stepped back," he said.

The Forum was attended by British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, presidents and heads of governments of developed countries interested in an accessible reporting of extractive industries and business in general. - 17D-