Sabit Bagirov

International Policy Fellowship

September, 2005

Project

Azerbaijan: problems of good governance in extxractive industries

and mechanisms of effective public monitoring

INTERIM REPORT

Aprel, 2005 – August, 2005

In the time period between May and August 2005, I carried out the following work:

1. opened by personal website;
2. developed a work plan to Policy Study on governing oil revenues;
3. collected necessary legal acts (laws, presidential decrees, government resolutions, oil contracts, etc.) regulating the activities of government agencies and companies involved in the development of oil-fields and in governing oil revenues;
4. carried out an analysis of the collected legal acts and identified provisions which need to be improved from the standpoint of ensuring good governance;
5. determined main flows of oil revenues and elaborated earlier calculations of anticipated revenues of the state oil fund, state budget, the state social security fund and state oil company;
6. carried out a preliminary analysis of the government strategy in using oil revenues;
7. wrote a draft of Policy Study.

At the next stage (before the end of 2005) it is planned to:

Ø conduct interviews with government officials, well-known experts, representatives of international financial institutions, oil companies (national and foreign);

Ø conduct a focus group involving experts in the anti-corruption fight;

Ø conduct a roundtable to discuss Policy Study results;

Ø study the experience of other countries in governing the revenues obtained as from the development of natural resources;

Ø review the results of the country’s involvement in the EITI;

Ø prepare recommendations for the government and parliament;

Ø identify activity directions and tasks of local NGOs in monitoring the government’s measures towards governing oil revenues;

Ø develop Policy Study;

Ø write articles for local newspapers;

Ø write the first version of the Policy Paper.