By Ahmad Aliyev, Community Business Mobilizer for the World Bank supported Azerbaijan Rural Investment Project

I have always believed that communities are like musical instruments. You need to tune them properly to hear their divine music. I actually heard this music from rural communities in India. And their song, which still resonates within me, is something I will now take back to my own country.
In May 2017, my colleagues and I from the World Bank’s Azerbaijan Rural Investment Project were on an exposure visit to India to see firsthand how self help groups and cooperatives were impacting the lives of rural people.

Today, an opening ceremony of the Kindergarten Construction project was held in Aran community . The event was organized by the Aghabedi rayon Executive Committee . Mr.Shahin Mammadov, Head of the Executive Committee and authorized representatives of the ExCom were attending the ceremony

Today, a Regional Workshop on Capacity Building was held in North-West zone. The event took place in Goygol town. Big thanks to the local staff of North-West Regional Operations office !

Today, a Regional Workshop on Capacity Building was held in Barda town. The event was organized by the Karabakh Regional Operations Office staff. The participant were the representatives of communities from Aghjabedi, Barda, Tartar and Beylagan rayons. The event was memorable by a dynamic group works and interactive discussions.

Today we visited Amul, the largest Dairy Cooperative in India, owned by 3.6 million milk producers.Met Mr RS Sodhi, Managing Director of Amul and the leadership team and learnt about its journey which started in 1946.

We are now in India on an exciting study tour on livelihood development and infrastructure development. So far, we have visited Kudumbashree and Jalnidhi in Kerala, and SERP in Andhra Pradesh, and learned the following:

Today, a Regional Conference was held in North Zone of AzRIP-2 . The topic of the conference that was held in Ismayilli town was “Women Participation in Community Projects” .

Regional Conference on Women Participation in Community Projects was held in Masally town. The event participants were very proactive in presentations and group activities on gender issues .

Regional Conference on the “Sustainability of Community Projects” was held in Goygol town. Rural communities, AzRIP PMU, Goygol rayon ExCom, municipal leaders and local village ExCom representatives attended the conference that was organized by North-West ROO. Speeches and presentations, as well as the discussions around the sustainability issue were held.