Activities launched under the UNESCO and the Republic of Azerbaijan Trust Fund

In July 2013, the Director-General of UNESCO, Ms Irina Bokova and the Minister for Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr Abulfas Qarayev, signed a Framework Agreement on Cooperation between UNESCO and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Thanks to the generous contribution of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the amount of 5 Million USD to the UNESCO/Azerbaijan Trust Fund established under this Framework Agreement, the cooperation between UNESCO and Azerbaijan is fully operational and strengthened through new initiatives and activities.

To this date, contributions have been approved to the Special Accounts and specific Funds-in- Trust projects to be financed under the UNESCO/Azerbaijan Trust Fund in the following areas:

1) Girls’ Education

• Promoting gender equity and equality in education in Uganda through gender-sensitive primary teacher education and training
• Health Literacy and Behavior Change practices among Adolescent Girls in Kiberia Informal Settlements in Nairobi, Kenya
• Empowering girls from pastoralists’ communities in Ngorongoro through education programme, Tanzania

2) Avicenna Virtual Campus in Central Asia (Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan) - A large scale programme for teacher training in science and technology

3) Capacity Development for Education for All: support to the TVET sub-sector in Liberia

4) Promoting Intercultural Dialogue: A Global Tool for Mutual Understanding and the Rapprochement of Cultures

5) Contribution to the Fund for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage for “Strengthening Capacities of States to Safeguard Intangible Cultural Heritage for Sustainable Development in Bangladesh and Guatemala” and for enhancing the human capacities of the Secretariat of the 2003 Convention.  

6) Silk Road Online Platform for Dialogue, Diversity and Development

Azerbaijan is also supporting Associate Experts and Secondments to UNESCO under this Framework for cooperation

UNESCO is grateful to the Republic of Azerbaijan for its strong commitment to support UNESCO’s activities to reach our common goals in the fields of UNESCO’s competence.