Dear friends,
2022 was a special year.

We celebrated the 30th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s membership in the United Nations.

Over the course of three decades, the collaboration with Azerbaijan has transitioned from assistance to partnership-based cooperation. We remembered the many stories that accompanied that journey through exhibitions, planting of three thousand trees, launching TV programme series on the SDGs, social media campaign, charity bazaars and discussions with young people.

There is now another story unfolding across the country. It’s a story of the people of Azerbaijan, who have marshalled their resources to move the country forward, to recover from both COVID-19 and the protracted conflict.
In 2022, we continued working with the Government and other partners to support national development priorities and the SDGs focusing on five pillars - inclusive growth and decent work, effective public and social services, data and policy analysis, climate action, and gender equality, which are all interconnected and contribute to the overall goal of a prosperous and peaceful Azerbaijan.

In the centre of all this work were the people of Azerbaijan, particularly women, youth, elderly, persons with disabilities, internally displaced people, refugees, migrants and victims of trafficking. In support of the SDG acceleration agenda, in 2022 we - together with the Government - launched a multi-stakeholder high-level policy dialogue platform, the SDG Dialogue series, with the first SDG Dialogue focusing on Green Transformation.

We also kick-started stakeholder consultations on the availability of SDG data for Azerbaijan and gaps in SDG progress.
Sustainable financing agenda benefited from the studies on development finance, SDG Investor Map and the Impact Investing Ecosystem. Fourteen new members joined the UN Global Compact, and ten new companies became signatories to the Women’s Empowerment Principles in 2022.

Our support to post-conflict recovery continued in 2022, including mine action, skills development and livelihood support to IDPs and returned IDPs. National mine action capacities were enhanced, and mine risk education reached over 40,000 children.

Over 9,000 people in conflict-affected areas benefited from healthcare support and 1,500 people received life sustaining humanitarian assistance. Following the EU-UN-WB Joint Recovery Needs Assessment Scoping Mission in March 2022, we are exploring options to further scale-up support to the Government-led and people-centered multi-sectoral recovery in conflict-affected areas.

We also continued to work extensively on COVID-19 recovery, providing learning recovery support for 900 school students, training and guidance for around 3,000 healthcare workers, delivery of equipment, educational campaigns on vaccination reaching about 275,000 people and the development of national guidelines on infection prevention and control. Through targeted support for MSMEs and rural value chains UN promoted job creation and improved labour market outcomes: 287 new small businesses were created, over 1,400 young people participated in skill-building sessions.

Country’s efforts to provide quality education, health services, social protection, access to justice were also supported: 35,000 children and over 9,000 pregnant women were covered under home visits, 371 refugee and asylum-seeker children and 205 children with disabilities had access to education, while the number of inclusive schools increased from 12 to 22. With UN support, 4,500 people received free legal assistance.

On climate action and the environment, we helped to publish the Third Environmental Performance Review, a comprehensive legal review of climate change adaptation policies and policy briefs on coastal areas, water, agriculture and sustainable bioenergy options.

National capacities were built on monitoring and management of locusts and mitigation of pesticides, as well as on the food control and safety mechanisms to protect human health and environment.

To advance in gender equality, we supported the implementation of CEDAW recommendations, with stronger focus on response to gender-based violence with launch of referral pathways, legal and psychosocial support to survivors. Targeted advocacy and campaigns on the value of a girl child and building skills in STEM for young girls and women were also our focus in 2022. A technical review of the Azerbaijan Labour Code was conducted to promote non-discrimination in employment and occupations which led to the reduction of prohibited professions for women from 674 to 204 by the Parliament.

Together with a coalition of partners, including bloggers, artists, filmmakers, painters, psychologists, and sociologists, a momentous 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign was carried out in sixteen regions of Azerbaijan, reaching nearly 2,700 people. This report further details our work in 2022 and we, as a whole UN family, look forward to continue with partners building an ever more peaceful and prosperous Azerbaijan.

Vladanka Andreeva
UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan