II International Congress
373
The humanitarian organization is working in
Ardahan located in the north-eastern part of
Turkey. It took a long time for IBC and BTC Co.
to have a proper relationship with the local
government agencies because they were suspi-
cious and sceptical regarding their activities.
State University
Atatürk University Agriculture faculty was
founded in 1958 and is a state university. The
project coordination unit of the faculty is the
implementing partner of BTC Co. in Erzurum.
The university’s biggest advantage is their access
and good communication to the other government
agencies in the city. One of the main advantages
of this program is that the academic staff had the
chance to implement their theoretical knowledge
in reality. As a pilot project, strawberries have
been planted for the after a long time in Erzurum
where the villagers are not very familiar with this
fruit. All the products are certified organic
products and there have already been a few
foreign customers keen to buy the products. To
celebrate the first harvest, the university organized
the first strawberry festival in one of the villages
next to the strawberry fields.
Private Sector
The first national private sector development
partner is Par Consulting (PAR) founded in
1998. As a CIP partner, PAR is responsible for
three cities along the pipeline. PAR activity areas
consist of income-generating activities, training
activities, micro projects and capacity building
activities.
The newest partner of the CIP is G&G
Consulting (G&G). G&G is a Turkish private
development consultancy founded in 1992. They
are responsible for three cities along the pipeline.
Their projects include a village development
association, children’s club and rehabilitation and
construction of a cemetery walk.
Other Stakeholders
Some of the local government agencies in
Turkey responded differently than those in
Azerbaijan. Although the problems were mainly
caused at the subcontractor’s level, due to the
miscommunication and authority and ownership-
related problems, the dialogue between BOTAS,
BTC and the local government agencies was
negatively affected. Local government officials
would have liked to play a more active
implementing role and they did not like the fact
that their role was played by the NGOs. The
consortium partners including the Turkish State
Petroleum Agency (TPAO) are not involved with
the CIP activities in Turkey but are informed
regularly. The local media agencies reflect the
opinion of the local communities.
Regional Development Initiative
To meet the international standards and the
demands of the lenders, social and environmental
programs have been implemented in the last two
years. During 2004, an independent panel
evaluated the impact of the sustainability business
of the BTC pipeline. As a part of their recom-
mendation, the panel advised BP to continue the
social and environmental investment with CIPs,
but also to start a new initiative with a higher
amount of investment and larger scope. Today
RDI is at the embryonic stage of development. BP
has committed $25 million to RDI over a ten year
period starting in 2005, and is searching for
partners such as international donors and NGOs to
support its large scale country wide, cross-regional
program. The audience of RDI is the internal BP
audience, the development audience, governments
and the public. The main difficulty is that there
are many stakeholders who speak different
languages. The translation of these different
expectations and concerns is difficult. In any case,
even with few partners, BP is committed to RDI.
RDI will deal with the macroeconomic acti-
vities and national priority with a higher level of
funding.The three broad categories that RDI will
focus on are defined by looking at what BP is
doing well in their business. The first one is
energy because BP is an energy company and they
have internal capabilities in addressing energy-
related issues. The second is enterprise develop-
ment, mainly focused on supply-chain develop-
ment. This is important for BP because it will
increase local content and increase the capacity of
the suppliers. BP is also planning to attract non oil
FDI to the region by supporting the supply chain.
The last theme to be addressed by RDI is cor-
porate governance. BP is planning to provide
training and communicate with government official.
Discussion
The previous chapter of the paper provided
detailed examples regarding the content of the
RSDP. This chapter will analyze the impact of the
program for BP as well as other stakeholders. In
general, it was a learning process for all the
stakeholders since it was the first example of its
kind. In addition, it was more a win-win than a
win-lose situation for the participants. The internal
impacts of this program for BP are the experience
and knowledge gained about the process and
partners. There are also signs of a return on the
social investment. The main external impacts of
Dostları ilə paylaş: |