A concert program called "Azerbaijan's Goodwill Angels" at the UNESCO headquarters

Concert ‘Goodwill angels of Azerbaijan’ by young talents of Azerbaijan was presented on May 20 at UNESCO Office in Paris in frame of the annual sitting of goodwill ambassadors due to support of Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

Prior to the concert, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO Mrs Mehriban Aliyeva delivered a speech.

Speech by Mehriban Aliyeva:

Dear Mr Director General,

Your Majesties,

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen!

I greet all the guests having come to this Azerbaijan soiree. Culture of Azerbaijan will be shown here. I express my special gratitude to UNESCO for creating this opportunity. I express my thanks to His Excellency Mr Koichiro Matsuura that realization of this event was possible and all preparation works have been done.

We all remember the visit of Mr Matsuura to our country. He took part in the ceremony of laying cornerstone for new carpet museum, was familiarized with construction of International Mugham Center. Mr Matsuura, we are grateful to You for supporting all our initiatives.

Dear friends, I am very glad to present Azerbaijan in UNESCO again. A lot of changes happened in our country after Day of Azerbaijan was held here 2 years ago. Economic growth of Azerbaijan for past years is in the highest level in the world. GDP increased 96% for 4 years. Our state budget has grown about 10 times. Over 600,000 workplaces have been opened during this time and we are much glad that unemployment has decreased, poverty dropped from 49% to 16% in 2008. All this are result of implementation of economic and political reforms in our country. These successes have assured implementation of different programs in social sphere. New roads are built, construction carried out, a number of social infrastructure is created in our country. 1300 new schools have been built, libraries, new medical centers, hospitals opened.

We render special attention to the youth issues too. We develop our national education system to apply the very modern standards in Azerbaijan. We yearly implement the scholarship program to assure education of our youth in influential education centers across the world. We believe access to information technologies must be assured. We therefore aim to assure use of computer and access to Internet of our children in every school. I consider the best investment is the one directed to education of our future generations.

Today reforms are carried out in Azerbaijan in field of science too and we try to integrate our scientific community into the international one. Special state commission was created for it in April. Lately we have done a lot of works for protection of our cultural and historical heritage. Azerbaijan is ancient country with rich cultural heritage. Our country was the bridge throughout the centuries between East and West. At present, historical monuments, all theaters and museums are restored and other works will be performed too. We pay attention to safeguarding of our historical monuments. Azerbaijan is the multinational country and people representing a lot of nations and religions live here in peace. We assure religious tolerance and tolerant approach to other cultures. We have achieved progress in many fields and I believe Azerbaijan is in the right way.

However, we have some difficulties. I want to attract attention of international community to our biggest problem once again. This is Armenia-Azerbaijan, Daghlig Garabagh conflict. Occupation of our territory by Armenia had very painful results for our education, culture. Schools, historical sites, museums in occupied territories have completely been devastated. As a result of ethnic cleansing policy over a million of refugees and IDPs have been created. Our government tries to improve life conditions of those refugees and IDPs. We plan to improve their life conditions and achieve full annulment of places they were inhabited so far and we are doing it. We hope this conflict will soon be settled in base of international law and within territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and refugees and IDPs must go back to their native places.

Relations between UNESCO and Azerbaijan started after restoration of our independence. Those relations have developed and in base of them many projects have been executed. UNESCO backs works done in our country, some of our tangible and intangible cultural heritage samples have been included in the UNESCO lists. We are implementing now important education programs with UNESCO. To assure further development of these ties we will do our best in future too.

Finally, dear friends, I invite you all to listen to the concert of these young performers, Azerbaijani musicians. They are our future. I think they are the most beautiful goodwill ambassadors and today they will perform our traditional music, famous compositions.

Thank you so much, I again express gratitude to the organizers and wish happiness to your family and yourself. Thank you.