Past projects
During last two years, ERC’s activities were fruitful and successful. In order to reach its strategy goals, the Center implemented more than 30 projects within last 2 years. New donors were involved to implement these projects and so there was achieved diversity of donors. The World Bank, USAID, Counterpart, CHF, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Azerbaijan, Fredrich Ebert Foundation, State Council for assistance to NGOs are in the list of donors that the Center was cooperating within last 2 years. Besides, the Center also continued its cooperation with its previous donors (USAID, OSI, Oxfam GB, ICCO, WLI, Counterpart International, Eurasia, Partnership Foundation, Council for Economic Education).
• “Budget Transparency and Budget Control” program (2004 - ongoing). The project is supported by Oxfam Great Britain and Open Society Institute’s Assistance Foundation. In the framework of the program monitoring of investment budget allocated to the infrastructure projects has been conducted.
• “Support to Economic Education” Program (2004 - ongoing). The project aims at promoting active economic education methods and increased teaching quality at schools. Financed by CEE and held in various regions across the country, the annual workshops involve teachers to develop their skills in teaching of economics.
• “Alternative Inflation Rate and Model Development” project has been launched since 2009. The project is financed by the Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Co-operation ( SECO). One of the main project directions is to build econometric model for forecasting of inflation and measuring impact level of factors influencing to inflation level in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, carry out observations of changes occurred in consumer price index in 22 regions.
• “Strengthening Local Self-Governance in Azerbaijan” program. The project acquired financial support from Oxfam GB and ICCO (Netherlands) organizations. The aim of the project is raise trust of communities toward municipalities, improve the position of municipalities in dialogue with government and attain enhancement of municipalities through increasing financial resources in Azerbaijan.
• “The Azerbaijan Producers Survey: Dutch Disease and Financial Crisis” is a research based project financed by US Department of State. The project has been implemented by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) and Economic Research Center. Moreover, a special survey has been conducted among business parties operating in Azerbaijan.The survey instrument was designed to address two important questions. First, has the recent increase in revenues to producers of Azerbaijani crude oil and natural gas led to changes in producer behaviour and performance consistent with the predictions of the Dutch Disease theory? Second, did the crisis of 2008-2009 that began in the US and European financial markets have a measurable effect on the activities of Azerbaijani businesses?
• “Agricultural Input Market” launched since 2009. The project has been financed by Oxfam Novib. Current condition of agricultural system of Azerbaijan has been researched through statistical analyses and economic-mathematic methods within the project.
• ““Evaluation of impact on State Budget Expenses on social field from Macroeconomic Equilibrium Perspective”. Project has been launched since 2009 and financed by the Civil Society Project of USAID and Open Society Institute’s Assistance Foundation. It has been started to analyze social related state budget expenditures. Furthermore, essence, efficacy of pension reforms and their impact on pensioners implemented in the country has been researched.
• “Households Budget Survey (HBS) Methodology Development ”. Project has been implements with financial assistance of USAID in 2008-2010. The main activity carried out within the project has been survey among 3000 households. The survey aimed evaluation of access possibilities of population to social services. The project will serve for strengthening of Azerbaijan state’s poverty reduction strategy, as well as methodological development of HBS.
• “Assessment of the factors impacting efficiency of the Targeted Social Assistance (TSA) mechanism”. Project has been launched since 2006 and financed by the Civil Society Project of USAID, Oxfam Novib (Netherland) and Open Society Institute in Azerbaijan. In the framework of this project ERC conducted monitoring of transparency and efficiency of state funding allocated to TSA in rural and later in urban areas. This project addressing assessment of the factors impacting efficiency of the targeted social assistance mechanism with the purpose of evaluating errors of inclusion and exclusion in TSA coverage, as well as identifying poverty factors, given the social significance and scale of insufficient benefit capacity problem in Azerbaijan.
• “Mirror statistics” in Azerbaijan Republic and justification of foreign trade indicators” project (2010). The aim of the research is to provide assistance on increase the quality of foreign trade statistics in Azerbaijan Republic and fill the gaps exist in this area. The main obligation of the project is to attain the justification of statistical indicators characterizing foreign trade and achieve its correction.