Women’s Participation Program in Azerbaijan

Situation

While the government of Azerbaijan has gender equity provisions in key laws and policies, these policies and laws are not universally applied, and violations of women’s rights and gender disparities remain widespread in the country. According to the UN Population Fund, “In post-Soviet Azerbaijan, women are more likely to be unemployed, paid less than men and discriminated against in the workplace.” The end of Soviet era and bureaucratic quotas for women has resulted in declining numbers of Azerbaijani women in elected office. Currently women make up less than 20% of the members of Parliament (Inter-Parliamentary Union), 14% of the judges (United Nations Population Fund) and a very small percentage of senior administrative positions.

In 1995, Azerbaijan participated in the Beijing Women’s Forum and ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In 2006, as requested in the CEDAW convention, the President decreed the establishment of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children to assume the lead role in determining policy concerning women’s issues and gender equality. As of 2009, CEDAW, in its 44th session, concluded that while Azerbaijan has made significant progress yet critical areas of concern remain, among them: discriminatory laws regarding legal marriage age, domestic violence, education, healthcare and employment.

What We Do

The Women’s Participation Program (WPP) is a two-year, USAID-funded program, made possible through the Global Civil Society Strengthening Leader with Associates award (GCSS LWA). The program seeks to improve the status of women in Azerbaijan by raising public awareness on issues that affect women and empowering more women to engage in the political processes. This program is framed by the following objectives:

1.     To advance public awareness of issues important to women;

2.     To advance women’s influence in political processes; and

3.     To develop the capacity of women-focused civil society organizations (CSOs) and government institutions that work on women’s issues.

The program is closely tied to the CEDAW commitments. Counterpart will be working in partnership with a core group of competitively selected women’s CSOs as well as key government counterparts to stage broad public awareness campaigns aimed at educating the public about women's issues and rights outlined in the UN Convention and encouraging women to participate more actively in public and political life of the country. In addition, WPP will support several issue-based campaigns targeting CEDAW priority issues.    

By the conclusion of the program, we anticipate to achieve the following results: increased public awareness of CEDAW and women’s issues; enhanced institutional capacity of local CSOs to engage with governments in policy dialogue on women’s issues; increase in the number of women leaders and their influence in politics and governance; policy recommendations to the government of Azerbaijan for improving implementation of CEDAW; and legislation or ministerial initiatives to improve the status of women.