Civil society plays a crucial role in supporting the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. This Agenda sets out 17 Sustainable Development Goals addressing the global challenges we face today, ranging from eliminating poverty, inequality, climate change, and environmental degradation to promoting education, economic growth, peace, and justice. Civil society promotes these Sustainable Development Goals by advocating for relevant policies, monitoring, and supporting accountability on these issues, and raising awareness. On this account, the EU and UNDP value a dynamic civil society environment, which fosters pluralism and contributes towards sustainable development and inclusive growth. Both organisations have a long history of partnership in Azerbaijan jointly advocating for the inclusion of civil society in country-led efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda. In this project, the EU and UNDP collaborate to strengthen capacities and to create space and opportunities for civil society to effectively engage in solving the sustainable development-related challenges. The project also promotes greater financial independence of civil society organisations (CSOs) by promoting social entrepreneurship.

The overall objective of this project is to accelerate the development and growth of the civil society sector in Azerbaijan. Its long-term objective is to contribute to building conducive environment for a vibrant, sustainable, and innovation-driven civil society in Azerbaijan. Specifically, the project aims to:
i) strengthen the CSO capacities in policymaking processes by, for example, delivering training programmes on policy research and drafting, as well as providing individual mentoring sessions to CSOs;
ii) support the engagement of CSOs in local development actions;
iii) improve policies for social enterprise ecosystem development; and
iv) provide opportunities to boost social entrepreneurship and innovation.
The project also addresses the topics of gender equality and women empowerment, climate change and post-COVID-19 response.

- Capacities of the CSOs for policy engagement around development issues are strengthened through tailored trainings, workshops, webinars, and one-to-one mentoring sessions;
- Essential capacities of the region-based CSOs as actors in local development processes are built;
- Conducive ecosystem and enabling opportunities for boosting the start and development of social enterprise are improved;
- The Social Enterprise Platform is established and promoted.