Azad Jafarli
Today many acknowledge the fast development of the promising young nation of Azerbaijan. Given the geopolitical conditions in and around the main sources of the natural resources, namely oil and gas, and the politicized sensitivity felt at least by some neighboring ambitious states the young nation`s desire and built capacity to benefit from the income out of oil and gas strategy was a vital victory to firmly step ahead.
No doubt the difficulties faced and challenges acquainted were reproducing and revitalizing the lessons learnt. There was an overlasting discussion that took place at large scale to debate the pros and cons of what we today name the membership at the Council of Europe. Some were categorically against of it alarming the people about the "unobjective" criticism that might take place within the ambits of that august body. The main argument of supporters of this stand-point was that the biased countries disregarding the will and desire of the Azerbaijani nation would groundlessly attack it to follow the political agenda. While the dominant side was resolute in becoming member and the main advantage in their view was the promotion of human rights in the country by means of incorporation of international human rights standards into the national legislation and advancing the national legal system through adequate implementation. Consequently, the latters won.
Azerbaijan became member of the Council of Europe, party to the European Convention on protection of human rights and main freedoms, all core UN human rights conventions, was elected as one of the first 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council. In addition to the taken actions the strong political will enabled the nation to further uphold the standards of human rights on the ground. Therefore, the remnants of the Soviet past such as bureaucracy and corruption leading to endless administrative formalities had to be cut off forever.
We would not be mistaken if we call the new reform in the country as “Azerbaijani Service and Assessment Network (ASAN)”. It represented the new style for public services to be delivered from one single administrative building. One-stop-shop body called ASAN service centers enabled a citizen to have an access to several public services at once. Moreover, it also ensures an access to the related private services. In total 9 state entities are rendering 25 groups of public legal services followed by 22 services by private entities. The latter is provided in the framework of the PPP, private-public-partnership.
The sense of the innovation was to better ensure human rights through improved and updated working mood of public services. Interestingly enough the post-soviet countries have mainly suffered from the application of human rights in the ground rather than from the legislation. Bureaucracy and corruption were the main diseases leading to violation of human rights. Thus, on the one hand public services were outdated, on the other hand, the citizens had no access, or more adequately formulated no equal access to those services. To this end, ensuring equal access to public services was inevitable to guarantee human rights in practical terms.
This was exactly the main target while establishing ASAN service centers: equal access to public services and transparency in their functioning. Today each ASAN service center receives more than 1000 people a day. Overall 5 ASAN service centers, out of which two are located in the capital city of Baku and in Ganja and Sumgait cities one for each, are functioning on the basis of principles of efficiency, politeness, comfort and transparency. The queue system operates via software programme enabling citizens to fix up their preferences: they can come to the center in person, either they can call to 108 Call Center requesting the preferred time and date or fill in application form indicating the time and date and send it online. Further, the citizens can fully observe the whole process and complaint if they face any type of mistreatment. For that purpose the entire servicing time is recorded. The hand-in-hand payment is prohibited and only via bank payment and submission of receipt citizen in question can receive a particular service.
One should necessarily mention the unique legal structure. ASAN service centers are subordinated bodies of the State Agency for public service and social innovations. While the 9 state entities are rendering their services within the umbrella of ASAN service centers the State Agency as such does not provide the services. It only sets standards and conducts assessments and monitoring of the work done by 9 state entities. E.g. State Agency has a watchdogging authority. This entails another advantage of the ASAN service: no conflict of interest between those holders of service and the one holder of "shop". This co-relation ensures the objectivity and credibility of whole system and causes the reliance of citizens.
The watchdogging function of the State Agency is for ensuring the quality of work done within the ASAN service centers. This is why the ASAN service centers represent the corruption free area guaranteeing the equal access to public services to each and every citizen. The essencial point leading to success is the transparency. The transparency is the key factor and is ensured throughout the process from the beginning till the end. That is what the State Agency did achieve within a short period of time.
One of the important elements of transparency is the public participation. Especially the public is keen of attending the quality measurement. This is core to comprehend the views of main stakeholders, on the one hand, and to ensure the objectivity of the measurement process, on the other hand. Attendance of public in measuring the quality of the rendered services is the best manifestation of citizen-run- measurement organized by the State Agency in the way to transparency. The results are speaking themselves: up to date several measures have been taken to enlarge the comfort conditions created for citizen; several e-public services have been put in effect to meet the expectation of population, etc.
Today over 80 thousands citizens are likers of the Facebook page of the State Agency. Over 1 thousand people benefit from the ASAN services within a day in each ASAN service center. Over 500 thousands citizens were registered to be well satisfied from the services as a whole. Several innovations are in place including the issuance of a foreign passport within a day, mobile ASAN services by means of the special equipped busses, ASAN signature that enables to get an access to electronic public services without a card -reader. Not to forget, over a thousand of volunteers have been involved into the process during 6-7 month period, etc.
What is observed in the pozitive dinamics of the nation building is that the application of human rights on the ground is becoming more and more evolved and turns into the real concern and success of the State authorities in the way to nation building.
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