The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) in cooperation with the State Agency for Public Services and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SAPSSI) have organized a joint webinar to explore possible areas of cooperation between Azerbaijan and other IsDB Member Countries, especially in Central Asia.

On behalf of IsDB, the event, on 16th March 2021, was attended by representatives from IsDB’s Regional Cooperation and Integration Department (RCI), as well as Regional Hub of Turkey (RHT), and Regional Hub Kazakhstan (RHK).

During the two hour most engaging webinar, the experts from SAPSSI made a comprehensive presentation about their activities in the area of public services, supporting SMEs, social projects, innovations, and digital solutions based upon the concept of “one-stop shop” center for various services.

The IsDB, in turn, highlighted its strong desire to collaborate with SAPSSI to enable IsDB to play the role of connector and catalyst for transferring the knowledge, experience, and technology of SAPSSI to other IsDB Member Countries, especially in Central Asia, through its Reverse Linkage capacity sharing modality.

In this context, IsDB proposed to organize a series of webinars, with special emphasis on the CSI countries, to enable other IsDB Member Countries to benefit from the experience of SAPSSI, a proposal that was positively welcomed by the SAPSSI.

Working in close coordination with the RCI and Regional Hub Turkey, the Regional Hub Kazakhstan will contact the relevant government agencies in Central Asia for organizing the envisioned webinars.

SAPSSI is the central body responsible for management of ‘ASAN’ centers in Azerbaijan.

The word ‘ASAN’, an acronym for ‘Azerbaijan Service and Assessment Network’, also means ‘easy’ in local Azeri language. The main goal of ‘ASAN’ centers is to leverage modern technology solutions to provide services to the local population more conveniently.