AzNET Project : Funders

The project is prepared in line with the National ICT Strategy and will be implemented by Government of Azerbaijan, OSI - AF, UNDP and AZRENA.

Free and functional office premises for the project related activities and facilitate access to any information necessary for the consultants to complete their missions. However, it should be noted that should it be the case that the project require specific premises for training activities and equipment while the Government is unable to provide the necessary premises in full, the project reserves a right to rent respective premises. It would be appropriate to have adequate office space for the consultants located in the focal point premises. For regional based trainings OSI-AF capacity as well as the capacity of Regional Internet Resource Centers, established within the framework of the joint project of the Government of Azerbaijan and UNDP entitled "National Information Communication Technologies Strategy and its initial implementation" can be utilized.

Overall support in preparation of the training courses, including proposing, in consultation with UNDP, the persons to be invited to the training activities. These persons must all be closely connected, in their professional position, at present and in future.

Assistance to UNDP in identification of the most appropriate national experts. Such experts, government officials and/or private sector representatives, should have a clear understanding of the Government's policies related to the sector. The focal point will work closely with the international and national consultants assigned to the project.

National Project Coordinator for the project and salary of a National Project Coordinator for the entire duration of the project.

Amount of USD 350,000 to the budget of the project to be allocated within three years;
Assistance in selecting international/local training consultants and staff to be recruited under the project;
Briefing for selected international and local consultants;
Participation in the organization of training activities, selection of equipment suppliers and organization of training courses;
Supervision, in close collaboration with the senior management of the Project, the quality content of the project outputs;
Through this project, UNDP will act as a privileged advisor to the Government of Azerbaijan in helping to harness ICTs for national development.

Amount of USD 350,000 to the budget of the project to be allocated within three years;
Provision of initial Internet access to the Project via NATO Virtual Silk Highway Project
Support of the Project through its POPs in Baku and Regions of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan Research and Educational Network Association (AzRENA) was established in August 2000 by leading research institutes and universities. AzRENA network was created on the base of existed since 1995 academic network, which connected all main buildings of Academy by fiber-optic channel and was connected to the local ISP by rent channel with the traffic-carrying capacity of 64kbps. The further extension was supported by grants of NATO scientific program. At present, the AzRENA network consolidates about 15 educational and research centers. Approximately 900 workstations are connected to Internet through AzRENA (domain AzRENA.org) serving 6000 users.

In this Project AzRENA represents research and science organizations. The central node of AzRENA network is the Network Operational Center (NOC) in Azerbaijan National Academy of Science. Equipping of the NOC was done in the framework of NATO grant NIG 976 370, and also International Project "Virtual Silk Way" NATO Scientific Program VSAT-terminal, satellite and appropriate network equipment gives the opportunity of high-speed access to West Europe Backbone with using ground satellite station EUROASIASTAT.

Amount of USD 586,036 to the budget of the project to be allocated within three years;
Provision of expertise to the Project in Educational application of ICT;
Provision of Technical staff for the Project, to ensure the overall maintenance of the system established.
To ensure the access to the results and resources of previous and current projects implemented by OSI-AF

The Project's oversight is provided by the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee includes the equal number of members from each funding Party. All three Parties agree upon the remaining members. The Committee convenes quarterly.

For the duration of the Project, the ISP is operated by the Project Staff. In future, it will be registered as the Azerbaijan Research and Learning Data Network.

OSI-AF has founded and supported its own institutional telecommunication data network since 1998. This network is non-profit information-communication system established by operational activity and grants from OSI-AF and NATO's Science Program. The OSI-AF institutional data network may serve as an example of successfully designed and developing public telecommunication network, which dynamically used combinations of available national telecommunication resources and services of both government and private IT providers. In addition to physical (hardware) infrastructure, this data network is also very popular domain-name AZNET.ORG and the network of Resource and Training Centers preparing ITC specialists.

Traditionally, OSI-AF represents the interests of government (schools, libraries), non-government (NGOs of various spheres, specific ICT projects, initiative groups) and international (Project "Harmony", Relief International, Schools Online, etc) organizations, professional consortiums created on their basis, with their help and support. Consortiums, in this case, are the new types of alternative unions and associations of end-users and developers of national electronic content (school, library, training-educational, high school and other consortium based).

Besides, of direct financial support to the project in amount of 200,000 USD annually OSI-AF indirectly supports the Project with all currently active and perspective resources, projects and expertise potential of Information and Education Programs of OSI-AF. This contribution consists of the following:

Available on OSI-AF's balance, which is used to support the work capacity of the infrastructure located in Baku, Ganja and Mingechevir cities; the equipment of Public Internet Access centers in Baku and Ganja; the equipment and resources of Training Centers in Baku.

eIFL Direct (Electronic Information for Libraries) - this multi-country network of national library consortia is providing low-cost access to electronic journals and building capacity for local consortia to negotiate with international vendors to meet local needs. It is now active in 40 countries, providing access to more than 5000 journals. A new line of science and technology journals has recently been made available in 20 countries. EIFL was established as an independent foundation in the beginning of 2003.

GIPI (Global Internet Policy initiative) - is an important supporter and mobilizer of policy work in two related areas: policy for low-cost access to information infrastructure and the protection of free expression and civil liberties on the internet. A key priority of GIPI is to foster local policy capacity and networks beyond the courtiers where most policy expertise in these areas has traditionally been concentrated.

Open Access Initiative - is a project to shift the publication of peer-reviewed research articles to an open-access electronic basis. OSI is funding a range of interlocking projects on advocacy and awareness-raising, development of open-access business and economic policy models, the creation of new resources to promote and aggregate open-access publications, the dissemination of platform technologies, and the consolidation of a global movement for open access in pursuance to the following strategic objectives:

Accelerate the shift to open-access publishing, so that by 2006, at least 10% of peer-reviewed research articles are available on an open-access basis
Increase support among major research funding agencies to provide for open-access publication as part of research grants
Ensure easy availability of business plans and software tools for open access journals and institutional repositories/archives.

Translation Projects - in accordance with the OSI strategy and an agreement between OSI and the Next Page Foundation (the spin-off that manages the CEU/OSI Translation Project), OSI is providing support for translations of ICT related books into Azerbaijani language.

OSI-AF would be interested in promotion of close cooperation between the Project and OSI-AF Education Program in providing the Project with expertise in ICT Applying in Education, support of Country-Wide Educational Network Development, eLearning Resources Development and coordination with Education Reform ICT Subcomponent.

About funders