Management arrangements

All the entities involved do have substantial experience in the sector with UNDP being the leading Government partner in the field of ICT and both OSI-AF and AZRENA possessing specific area experience gained through years of the previous activities. The newly established Ministry is a government counterpart within the given project.

The project is subject to National Execution procedures. The project implementation is to be ensured in close coordination and collaboration between the Ministry of Communication and IT, UNDP, AzRENA and OSI-AF in their capacity of both donors and the strategic partners. The request for assistance from UNDP stems from recognition of capacity for institutional capacity building and experience in the field as well as the organization capacity to easily facilitate experience/technology transfer. Given profound experience of the OSI-AF and existing institutional capacity of AzRENA in this particular segment of the ICT sector, their involvement is equally important feature enabling an alliance of the parties concerned The project will be a subject to external independent international evaluation to be ensured within 12 months from the beginning of the operational project activities.

The Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies on behalf of the Government will provide all required national counterpart services for the implementation of the project. It will facilitate all policy and technical missions to be undertaken within the context of this project and related activities and will ensure access to project sites, relevant data, records, agencies and authorities as well as telecommunication cost. The project will benefit from the preparedness of the Ministry to allow access to its infrastructure either at no cost or special favorable rates for the efficient implementation of the project activities.

The Project is subject to joint review by the representatives of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies, AzRENA, OSI-AF and UNDP. The review will take place twice per year during the project lifetime. The national project coordinator shall prepare and submit to the review meeting an Annual Project Report to be prepared 2 weeks prior to the date of the review. Project's terminal report will be prepared for consideration at the joint review meeting. The monitoring and evaluation of the project shall also be subject to the provisions stipulated in the UNDP Procedures for National Execution.

All Parties declare their intention to ensure the not-for-profit nature of the Project and the proper use of the material and other resources designated for this project, by participating in a Steering Committee. Coordination, project monitoring, strategic management and transparency of Project also will be conducted by Project's Steering Committee. To ensure open and participatory review and monitoring of the project implementation at all the stages, the Steering Committee will be established consisting of one representative of all four parties involved. The Steering Committee meetings will be held at the same time with the joint review. In the meantime, each project stakeholder is authorized to call for an extraordinary meeting should it be necessary with 3 working days notice. The Steering Committee acts based on full consensus decisions.

The overall supervision of the project will be ensured by the National Project Coordinator to be appointed by the Government.

The Project Director to be selected on a competitive basis will deal with the daily management of the Project. One finance and one administrative assistant as well as a driver will also be hired through interview process. In the meantime, the Project Director will also supervise a team of technical staff consisting of the qualified experts with the profound knowledge of the technical aspects of data development and network maintenance. The Project Director will be reporting to the National Project Coordinator working in close contact with focal points from other donor/strategic partner organizations concerned. (Pls. see TORs attached)

To ensure the prompt implementation of the Project a Project's Staff shall be hired, established and report directly to Project Director. The Project Staff will be responsible for full operation and communication of the Project related issues. The Project Director carries out activities of Project. This person will have the authority to sign and submit to Project Coordinator financial and other documents related to realization of Project and regularly reporting to the Steering Committee and the National Coordinator. The Project Director is nominated from OSI-AF.

The Project will be audited according to the relevant UNDP Rules and Procedures for auditing NEX projects.

The project Management arrangements should also be structured in accordance with the respective rules and regulations of the UNDP Funded projects provided in the respective circulars of UNDP. To ensure efficient monitoring of the results produced, the project will design and introduce special indicators/baseline information system within the first 6 months of activities