The Eurasia Foundation created the South Caucasus Cooperation Program (SCCP) in 1998. The program aims to consolidate relations and cooperation between leading organizations in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Since its inception the program has funded 66 cooperative projects. Primary areas of financing include private enterprise development, civil society, public policy and, recently, environmental protection and cultural policy.
One of the main initiatives concerned support for the program “Development of Civil Rights Advocacy Groups in the South Caucasus”. Partner organizations of the program included:
Foundation Against Breaching the Law (Armenia)
Former Political Prisoners Convicted for Fighting for Civil Rights (Georgia)
Civil Rights Center (Azerbaijan)
The project was intended to support cooperation and exchange of information between organizations dealing with protection of civil rights. As a result, common standards for identifying the abuse of civic liberties were accepted regionally. Other aspects of the project included training representatives of civic rights organizations, creating a database and a web page related to the issue of protection of civil liberties throughout the region, publishing informative materials, and monitoring mass media sources.