A UN staff member - an Azeri diplomat - has been appointed Head of the Regional UNDP Office in Kurdistan (Iraq). Sultan Hajiyev is one of the highest-ranked Azeri staff members working for the United Nations. He is known as successful crises manager. His record includes Kyrgyzstan during the revolution of April of 2010 and ethnic clashes in the south of the country during the summer of the same year, Afghanistan, Yemen and South Sudan. Hajiyev already has experience of having worked in Iraq – he was assigned to this country earlier from his position of UNDP HQ Senior Advisor for complex emergency countries. Having started his career with the UN in Azerbaijan in 1994, Hajiyev has been one of the founders of the close cooperation between Azerbaijan and UNDP on e-governance. This partnership is still considered to be one of the best practices of cooperation between a government and international organization in this area.

It should be mentioned that Hajiyev, who has several years’ worth of experience at UNDP HQ in New York is one of the active supporters of promoting successful examples of Azerbaijan’s good governance efforts as an example for countries facing similar development challenges. He also contributed to positioning our country as one of the emerging donors to the UN. Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Afghanistan is one of the best samples of such a partnership, and Hajiyev has promoted it actively during his assignment in Afghanistan as Chief Capacity Development Advisor of UNDP. The Azerbaijan International Development Agency (AIDA) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Communication and High Technologies of the Republic of Azerbaijan have been the driving forces behind this initiative.

Azerbaijan’s experience in providing services to its population under ASAN service is yet another major area for cooperation, which UNDP has expressed its strong interest to replicate abroad.

Iraq, in general, and Kurdistan, in particular, are known to be the battlefield for confronting ISIS. The latter has rearranged the map of the region during the last few months. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to abandon their homes which have resulted in a major humanitarian disaster. The international community is mobilizing its resources to address this challenge but the situation remains extremely tense. In the meantime, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is considered to have major potential for economic development, boosted by natural resources. Iraq is one of the priority countries for the United Nations, and the fact that our fellow Azeri has been appointed for one of the leading positions in the country is quite remarkable.

It should be added that the head of the Kurdistan Regional Center is also the First Deputy Country Director of UNDP for Iraq.

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