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11 Int'l J. Not-for-Profit L. 93 (2008-2009)
Charity in Azerbaijan: Prospects for Developing Legislation and Practice

handle is hein.journals/ijnpl11 and id is 285 raw text is: International Journal ofNot-for-Profit Law /vol. 11, no. 3, May 2009 /93 Article Charity in Azerbaijan: Prospects for Developing Legislation and Practice Mahammad Guluzade and Natalia Bourjaily' People of all walks of life are engaged in charity in Azerbaijan, businessmen and regular people alike. In spite of the existing traditions and the presence of political will to promote the development of philanthropy, however, there exist a number of serious legislative obstacles hindering charitable activities. Speaking of the issues related to charity in March 2008, Mrs. Mehriban Aliyeva, the First Lady of Azerbaijan, specifically emphasized the lack of comprehensive legal and regulatory base governing charitable activities and the absence of an adequate mechanism providing for a partnership cooperation in the field of philanthropy between public agencies functioning on various levels of government, the private sector and civil society institutions.2 In this article we attempted to provide an overview of the currently effective legislation and underscore certain pivotal issues which should be resolved. Although the Azerbaijani legislation declares support for philanthropy, it contains very limited incentives for charitable activities. A number of non-government organizations,3 including charitable ones, are funded by foreign grants, with a limited support provided by the local business community. The lack of interest in charity on the part of local businesses can be explained by a complete absence of tax benefits that would encourage such activities. We hope that this article and the analysis carried out by the International Center for Not- for-Profit Law will help to improve the legislation regarding philanthropy and will assist in creating a national concept of developing charity in Azerbaijan. History of formation of the charity-related legislation in Azerbaijan In the very first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Azerbaijan attained its independence, the state started paying attention to issues related to charity. The Decree by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan On the establishment of the President's Fund (1992) also set up a special award of the President's Fund to bestowed for charitable activities and 1 Mahammad Guluzade is Legal Adviser in Azerbaijan for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). Natalia Bourjaily is Vice President, Newly Independent States, ICNL. In Azerbaijan, ICNL implements a technical assistance project in partnership with Counterpart International (USA), which is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and aimed at improving the NGO legislation. The original article is posted in Russian at http://wwwdayaz/news/societv/145183.t 2 See http://www.dav.az/news/societv/112132.html 3 Note that the Law On non-government organizations (public associations and foundations) (2000; hereinafter the Law on NGOs) and the Tax Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2000) (hereinafter TC) use different terminology. Consequently, the term non-government organization is used in the Law on NGOs while the TC refers to non-commercial organization. In actuality, both denote the same type of organizations. For the purposes of this article, we shall use the term non-government organization or NGO.

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