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George Soros
2
and its main goal is to shape public
policy to promote democratic governance, human
rights, and economic, legal, and social reforms.
OSI communicated to BP the concerns regarding
the local civil society monitoring activities which
were ad-hoc basis and not coordinated. In April
2004, a memorandum of understanding (MOU)
was signed between BP and OSI for the
monitoring of BTC pipeline by national NGOs. As
a result, an awareness conference and an election
were organized by OSI with the participation of
ninety national NGOs. The participants received
training from two international experts in the field
of monitoring methodology, data collection and
report writing sponsored by BP. The monitoring
lasted three months in the field and the next six
months was spent in the preparation of the reports.
In May 2005, the findings and recommendations
were delivered to BP. There were subjects where
BP agreed or disagreed, but the all parties
including BP agreed to continue the discussion in
the next monitoring process.
National NGOs
Hayat was founded in 1994 and has already
worked with the United Nation refugee agency for
six years with forty eight local staff. One of the
projects implemented by Hayat for BP is the
community development project for forty nine
refugee families. The project is composed of a two
greenhouses and a workshop with four sewing
machines where eight female refugees are
employed. The community spent their first year’s
income on the repair of the roof of their houses
and to organize a wedding.
The twenty nine national NGOs selected for
the BTC monitoring process represent a wide
variety of the NGOs in Azerbaijan. According to
their expertise and experience they were divided
into five main groups. The first one is the environ-
ment group. The main areas of the monitoring
were the ecological policy and environmental
management, waste-management, bio diversity,
atmosphere, water resources, and soil conditions.
Three main problems are soil reinstatement,
biodiversity protection and waste-management.
The second monitoring group is the historical,
cultural and archaeological heritage. The goals of
their monitoring were to understand the
procedures, the treatment and the mapping of the
findings. The third one is the social issues group.
This group goal was the study and the assessment
of the impact of the construction activities on the
local communities and infrastructure. The forth
2
Hungarian-born American businessman and a famous
philanthropist.
subject of the monitoring was human rights. The
main purpose of the group was to study the impact
of the construction on human rights in commu-
nities along the pipeline as well as land allocation,
compensation calculation, and labour rights. The
last working group is the use of local resources
which aims to assess the impact of the pipeline on
the economic condition of the communities.
Other Stakeholders
UN does not have any projects with BP or any
other energy partners; the main reason being the
different management styles. IFC and EBRD both
supported the CIP from the initial stage since they
are the main investor in the BTC pipeline. The
consortium partners do not have a strong presence
in Azerbaijan. On the other hand, the oil partners
of BP did not object to the CIP projects since the
funding for CIP is from consortium funds and not
just from BP. The national media is another
stakeholder of the project.
Analysis II: Turkey
BTC Co. Turkey is also led by BP, but what
makes the Turkish operation different is the lump
sum turnkey agreement with Turkish State
Petroleum Pipeline Company, BOTAŞ. One very
important implication is regarding the ownership
of the pipeline because BOTAŞ is recognized as
the owner of the project. The other main
difference is that Turkish CIPs are implemented
by national organizations. Their operations cover
ten cities along the pipeline. There are currently
five national partners; one university, two NGOs
and two consulting companies. The four themes of
Turkish CIPs are to improve income earning,
agricultural sector, social infrastructure and
capacity of communities to self organize and self
initiate.
Local NGOs
Sustainable Rural and Urban Development
Association (SÜRKAL) established in 2000 by a
group of development experts and is lead by a
group of sociologists, agronomists and veterina-
rians. SÜRKAL is responsible for two cities along
the BTC pipeline. Kars Sustainable Rural Deve-
lopment project was started in July 2003 with
$893,000 of BTC funds. Since the main economic
activity of the region is the animal husbandry, the
sustainability of the project depends on the pro-
ductivity increase of the animal husbandries and
the capacity building of the locals. Four male and
one female veterinarians and a technician are emp-
loyed in the SÜRKAL Kars office.
The second local NGO in the CIP Program is
International Blue Crescent Foundation (IBC).
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