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On June 20, 2017, EPF Azerbaijan with the support of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs and the Embassy of Kingdom of Sweden, facilitated “Seven” documentary play at Yarat, a contemporary art space. The guests were greeted with the welcoming speech by Ms. Hicran Huseynova, a chairperson of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs, and H.E. Ingrid Tersman, Swedish Ambassador.  Then the readers, who are well-known public activists, were invited on the stage to read the script. Seven is a documentary play created in 2007 with the support of Vital Voices Global Partnership. It is based on interviews with seven women’s rights activists from around the globe, all currently active aside from Inez McCormack who passed away in January 2013 after a short illness. Seven is written by Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deveare-Smith and Susan Yankowitz. The portrayed seven female activists from Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Guatemala and Cambodia, have all, in different ways, dedicated their lives to ensure both their own as well as others basic human rights. In a very strong and gripping way the play captures their strength and courage. The universality of the subject makes each performance just as touching as the other and often the reading results in audience or readers sharing personal experiences...

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Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) as one of the 12 CSO partners in the EU-UNDP facilitated a series of activities under the initiative on Strategic Cooperation and Coordination in Development and Governance between Sep 2016 and Oct 2017. In line with the commitments in the field of human rights and democratization under the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, EU and UNDP signed a contract with an overall objective to strengthen the role and capacities of civil society in Azerbaijan in the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the framework of the “Enabling civil society to play a greater role in advancing socio-economic rights of vulnerable populations“, which is funded by EU and implemented by UNDP. EPF facilitated different types of interventions to better address the needs of regional NGOs and their constituencies. In addition to the extensive capacity building (both institutional and related to public policy and effective advocacy), EPF provided the members of the regional NGO networks with opportunities to implement their small-scale initiatives addressing locally-defined needs. The target group consisted of around 30 local civil society organizations, local authorities, including EXCOMs, various governmental institutions both at regional and national levels, municipalities of the target regions as well as 3 NGO Resource Centres in Guba, Mingechevir, and Shirvan regions. The goal was to  address the development of mechanisms of input to policy processes by civil society organizations through the promotion of innovative forms of interactions, such as regional networks, regular coordination meetings, thematic working groups between civil society organizations on the one hand and local and national authorities, including municipalities, EXCOMs and other governmental institutions on the other, and achieving enabling environment for such actions both at local and national levels...

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Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) has been facilitating the Small Grants Program for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to engage civil society organizations in Azerbaijan between 2014 and 2016. The program sought to strengthen the civil society sector’s ability to advocate effectively in order to improve both public oversight of, and engagement with, the Government of Azerbaijan around issues of human rights, democratization, and good governance.  Through both small grants (which included opportunities for training and capacity building in specific areas, as justified by grantees’ needs) and continuous support from EPF to funded organizations, EPF enabled CSOs to mobilize the public to monitor and/or assess government actions, to partner with the new and traditional media to communicate their messages to the broader public, and to articulate their recommendations to government officials. The results are focused upon the development of a vibrant civil society advocating for and working on monitoring, advocacy, capacity-building, and information campaigns in the areas of human rights, democratization, and good governance. For more information about the program, please see the digital Tri-fold Brochure: Engaging_Civil_Society_Organisations.pdf..