Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The second Global Shared Societies Forum kicked off in Azerbaijani capital Baku on April 28.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the forum's opening ceremony.

The Azerbaijani president welcomed the event participants and expressed the hope that the days they would spend in Azerbaijan will remain in their memories for a long time.

"We have new guests, who visit Azerbaijan for the first time. I hope you will have good impressions about our country, our history, and culture," President Aliyev said.

President Aliyev in particular welcomed former heads of states and governments, adding that their participation in this event shows the importance of the forum.

"Also I would like to express my gratitude to the Club de Madrid, a good partner for our country. Our cooperation was established several years ago and it is very fruitful and very active. Also I am particularly happy that Nizami Ganjavi International Center, which is a relatively young institution, in a very short period of time, has already transformed into an influential international institution, which together with Club de Madrid organizes this important forum," President Aliyev stressed.

The Azerbaijani president expressed his gratitude to the supporters of Nizami Ganjavi International Center.

"The center has a name of a great Azerbaijani poet, who is a symbol of wisdom and talent of Azerbaijani people," President Aliyev underscored.

The Azerbaijani president also said the agenda of the forum is very broad.

"Of course, today and tomorrow during the sessions there will be important statements about what has happened before and what should be done in the future to provide equal opportunities and decent living standards for everybody," President Aliyev added. "Shared society is a society where every member feels in comfort, lives in dignity, has a job, and is sure about the future of his/her children."

The Azerbaijani president went on to add that Azerbaijan is a young and independent country, and although it is only 22 years of independence, it has experienced different times in this short historic period.

He went on to add that in the beginning, Azerbaijan suffered a lot of difficulties, political, economic problems, and now Azerbaijan has one of the fastest developing economies in the world. This transformation was just in front of our eyes.

"And we are glad that we were part of this process, and actively participated in transforming Azerbaijan into a modern state," President Aliyev stressed.

"Our nation has a great history, traditions, culture, but as a young and independent country we had a period of independence in the beginning of the 20th century. That was too short - only for two years. After the collapse of the Russian empire, and the Bolshevik revolution, there was a slogan, saying 'factories to workers, land to farmers, and freedom to all the people of the Russian empire'. But none of these promises were realized in reality," President Aliyev said. "Therefore in two years our freedom was taken away and Azerbaijan became part of another country again. Of course, that is part of our life, and our history. Therefore, people who live in post-Soviet area, I think value their independence, their independent choice, their right to be free, to have their own state, and to be proud of their state."

The president added that the short period of independence shows that despite all the difficulties, economic and political crisis, and civil war in the beginning of 1990s, Azerbaijan managed to overcome those difficulties and to plan its future so that today the country thinks about how to increase the living standards and how to become even stronger.

"One of the main reasons for such a transformation and main prerequisites for that was of course the policy of reforms, because we had to transform every aspect of our life, we had to learn to be free, to be independent, to have our own state, and to transform from one political system to another, which was not an easy task to do," President Aliyev underscored.

"But that happened, and today we have a very firm foundation for our statehood. We implemented political and economic reforms that modernized country largely. Development of democracy, fundamental freedoms, including freedom of assembly, freedom of media, free internet - these are now all integral parts of our life. Some 22 years ago, one could only dream about that."

President Aliyev went on to add that at the same time Azerbaijan clearly understood that without strong economic foundation its independence will not be full-scale.

"Therefore, political reforms and economic reforms are moving hand by hand. And one of the main reasons for our success was attracting foreign investments. And for the country which now faces the same complications as 20 years ago, this could be a good example of how to transform country and how to provide better life for the citizens. We managed to attract investments and direct them to the sectors of economy, which we needed to develop, and at the same time, which were attractive for investors," the president stressed.

President Aliyev also said Azerbaijan provided good investment climate, worked hard to create even more jobs, even with limited resources the country had some 15 years ago, and it still was moving in the right direction.

"And we clearly understood that for us the way forward, to strengthen our independence, to make it irreversible, we need to be economically free, economically independent and strong. Now I can say that the years of reforms still continue. Azerbaijan can be considered a country with a very clear future. We have been the fastest growing economy in the last 10 years."

The president said the sustainable development for Azerbaijan means planning for the future.

"We have a concept 'Azerbaijan 2020', and this document was adopted as a main guideline for our future. Our financial situation is solid, we have very low level of foreign debt, which is only eight percent of GDP, we can plan more actively to work with international financial institutions," President Aliyev stressed.

The president went on to add that at the same time the development of economy should have been diversified.

"Of course, natural resources, which are oil and gas, were main driving force for our success. But diversification is our top priority, because oil and gas sector does not generate jobs. Therefore, diversification of economy, investments in infrastructure including social infrastructure, providing decent living conditions in far-away regions, bringing broadband internet to every city and building 3,000 schools, 500 hospitals - all that created a new atmosphere in our society."

The president said Azerbaijan first stopped external migration - the migration from Azerbaijan to other countries.

"This was substituted by internal migration - that is from small villages to Baku. And now the target is to do everything to stop this migration as well," the president stressed.

He said the economic development was also backed up by some serious social programs.

"Because we know that sometimes radical economic reforms lead to difficulties for day to day life of the people. Therefore, social agenda of our government has always been top priority," President Aliyev added.

Increasing living standards, creating jobs and reducing unemployment - all of what happened - really shows that it can be done, the president underscored.

"First, we need stability, because without stability none of this is possible. Second, we need very clear domestic policy which is supported by the majority of the population. And we need to deliver results and to fulfil our promises and obligations. We can also refer to such an important element as a responsibility of politicians, those who are in charge. Sometimes in order to get more support or get more votes, some of our colleagues use populist promises and when they are not implemented, then, of course, disappointment happens. But the responsibility of politicians is also very important for themselves, because it increases the level of trust and consolidation of the society," President Aliyev stressed.

Therefore achieving results was Azerbaijan's main goal, and these results can be reflected in economic data and statistics.

"Poverty level now is around five percent, which was 49 percent 10 years ago. Active economic development created very good international situation around Azerbaijan, because the country became exposed, and more people became familiar with Azerbaijan. We now have much more support in international institutions than ever before. One of the indicators of that is strong support in the United Nations, during our election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, with the support of 155 countries," the Azerbaijani president underscored.

He said that means the absolute majority of international community supported Azerbaijan.

"Some countries, which are not very actively involved in bilateral relations with us, have also supported Azerbaijan. And our main agenda as member of the Security Council of the United Nations was to defend the rule of law and justice. It is because these are the two most important elements of today's world and both of them are violated brutally. There is no reaction to this violation, and we ourselves have suffered from that," President Aliyev stressed.

The head of state said there are four UN Security Council resolutions demanding an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan's territories and none of them are implemented.

"The occupation continues, we became the subject of ethnic cleansing, integral historic part of our country - Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts have been occupied for more than 20 years," the Azerbaijani president underscored.

He said such international organizations as the OSCE, the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council adopted resolutions and decisions with regard to the settlement of this conflict and none of them are implemented.

The president noted that it seems there are no mechanisms to implement them.

The forum is being attended by over 150 prominent public and political figures from 54 countries, former heads of states and governments, who are the members of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, Club of Rome and Club of Madrid.

The forum's agenda includes such issues as foundations of open societies, conflict settlement methods in difficult situations, multi-governance for ensuring sustainable development process and the need for institutional frameworks, as well as other important issues.

The forum is planned to hold broad discussions on such issues as practical work in the area of domestic economic growth policy, creation of conditions for high-quality education and other social services, strengthening the role of women in society, as well as the natural resources for sustainable development and the role of global boundaries, clean technologies and unity of "green energy".

During the discussions on the conflict settlement in difficult situations, the rapporteurs will share their experience and knowledge in the conflict settlement and social integration area, and will also exchange views on the basic principles of integration and openness, which may be useful in addressing the existing problems.