Non-Aligned Movement has stressed that corruption practices, including lack of sound international corporate governance, bribery, money laundering and transfer abroad of illegally acquired funds and assets undermine the economic and political stability and security of societies, undermine social justice and severely endanger the efforts of developing countries for sustainable development. NAM has called on its Member States to combat and penalize corruption in all its forms, as well as the laundering of proceeds of corruption and to prevent the acquisition, transfer and laundering of proceeds of corruption. The Movement has reiterated the importance of developing and promoting effective policies and practices aimed at the prevention of corruption.
Azerbaijan, a prominent Member State of the NAM and the former Chair of the Movement, is committed in the fight against corruption. In this respect, a significant framework is the country’s National Action Plan to Strengthen the Fight against Corruption for 2022-2026. This plan was approved by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev through a decree on April 4, 2022. The plan serves to consolidate the anti-corruption efforts of various agencies with different areas of activity and to systematically coordinate the fight against corruption among all government agencies and civil society institutions of Azerbaijan. The National Action Plan is guided by Item 32 of Article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan, in order to further increase the transparency of government agencies, prevent corruption, further strengthen the accountability of government agencies to the public, further improve electronic services provided by government agencies to the population, and to ensure the sustainability of anti-corruption measures.
The National Plan has identified six priority areas. The first priority area calls for formulating measures to improve the anti-corruption legal framework. The second priority area calls for measures to strengthen corruption and strengthen transparency. This includes increasing salaries, developing rules for formation of Judicial-Legal Council, enforcing the e-court system, facilitating public oversight, providing new online services, empowering digital platform for ExComs’ services to population, increasing control of state procurement and monitoring of funding, creating unified portal for income and expenditure of municipalities, and preparation of annual corruption risks reports by state bodies.
The third priority area calls for implementing measures to ensure financial transparency and combat money laundering and financing of terrorism through establishing an e-accounting portal and continuing with enforcing Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. The fourth priority area calls for implementing measures to improve public services and management mechanisms. The fifth priority area is the development of cooperation with civil society institutions and international cooperation in the field of combating corruption. The sixth and final priority area is raising awareness among the public on anti-corruption. This includes conducting training for civil servants on fight against corruption and ethics, training of municipalities, measures on increasing digital literacy of rural population, holding public discussions.
The Action Plan requires that Central and local executive authorities, legal entities owned or controlled by the state, as well as public legal entities established on behalf of the state will submit an annual report to the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Commission on Combating Corruption of the Republic of Azerbaijan by December 30 each year on the implementation of the measures outlined in it. The Plan also calls for approving annual work plans for the implementation of the Action Plan and sending information about this to the Anti-Corruption Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan in electronic form. The decree approving the National Action Plan also recommended to the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor-General’s Office, the Judicial-Legal Council, the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman), the Central Bank and the Chamber of Accounts of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as national associations of municipalities, to ensure the implementation of the Action Plan.
