Ten years ago, Azerbaijan launched to form a local self-government system which maintains world and European standards and which conforms to the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Two municipal elections hav been conducted in our republic till now and a network of municopalities have been set up, enough experience have been gained in connection with their progress, and all these enable democratic mechanism to develop in order to solve the problems of local people.

In spite of all existing diffculties, newly formed municipalities have gone on working and with the close assitance of civil society which is interested in the development of self government and government, initiated to build their activities.

Nevertheless, there are still outstanding problems in the area of self-government and the reason for the problems is the lack of experience. From this point of view, we assume that,it woud be beneficent to learin from leading countries in terms of their experience in local self-goverment and to use it creatively taking into consideration the national and local condition of Azerbaijan.

Important awareness activities must be carried out in order to develop consciousness about municipalities on the eve of the following municipal elections which is planned on December 23, 2009.Initially, municipalities and non-governmental organisations, political parties, tink tanks should implement the responsibilities with the utmost propriety.

The obligations and power of municipalities should be determined openly by making suitable changes in the legislation and central state bodies and their representatives on the spots, especially local administerative powers should not interrupt in the fields and functions within municipalities. From this point of view, we assume that, the devision of power and obligation between local administerative powers and local self-governments is significant .

“The Joint Working Group for the Implementation of International Human Rights Standards” and the Public Union “The Public Council on Human Righs” have compiled a package, which embraces solutions of problebs with regard to the activities and development of municipalities in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the document is submitted for the discussion of the general public.