Researchers and farmers in Azerbaijan, implementing climate-smart agricultural practices based on nuclear and related techniques, have been able to more than double their yields of cotton production in a project supported by the IAEA in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  Through the use of a new variety called “cotton super”, combined with carefully implemented CSA practices which help to understand how to sustainably increase agricultural productivity, the pilot project has seen yields increase from the country’s average of three tonnes per hectare to eight tonnes per hectare. Implemented in 2021, the pilot, part of an IAEA technical cooperation project, focused on developing climate-smart agricultural guidelines for cotton production, training Azerbaijani researchers and progressive farmers in climate-smart agricultural practices and designing on-farm demonstration trials. A further project, initiated in 2022 and focusing on strengthening best practices in soil, nutrient, and water management agricultural practices for cotton production, aims to help improve cotton productivity, as Azerbaijan’s land is particularly vulnerable to climate change and soil degradation. The country’s average annual temperature has risen by 0.4 degrees Celsius since 1991, with decreasing rainfall and more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts or heat waves. “Generally speaking, 60 per cent of improvement in crop productivity comes from capitalising on the strategic application of soil nutrients and water management,” said Mohammad Zaman, a soil scientist at the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture and Technical Officer of the project. “It’s about the right amount, in the right way, at the right growth stage.” Climate-smart agricultural practices involve the use of isotopic techniques to obtain essential information on how to optimize fertilizer use and increase the efficiency of agricultural production while maintaining soil health. “When we started, Azerbaijan’s soils were heavily degraded, the fertility was very poor, and so the soil did not have the capacity to provide all the essential nutrients required for the cotton growth,” Zaman said. To address this, IAEA experts developed a complete package of nuclear and related farming techniques: from preparing soil and selecting the best cotton varieties to applying nutrients and irrigation to cotton fields and ensuring weed, pest and disease control. “Applying improved soil, nutrient and water management practices along with using 'cotton super' variety has led us to increase our cotton productivity, quality and profit,” said Sakhavat Mammadov, a farmer from Azerbaijan who took part in the pilot project and has been using CSA practices on his farm for the last two years.     Using a stable isotope nitrogen-15, scientists collect quantitative data about how much nitrogen fertilizers cotton needs and how effectively they are taken up by the plant. (Photo: M. Zaman/IAEA)   Nuclear and related techniques help not only in increasing agricultural productivity but also in building resilience of agriculture systems to climate change. In Azerbaijan, the researchers used a technique involving nitrogen-15 (N-15), a stable isotope. Nitrogen plays an important role in plant growth and photosynthesis — the process whereby plants convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into plant food. Zaman explained that a lack of nutrients in the soil, such as nitrogen, leads to low and less nutritious yields. Excessive or incorrect application of nitrogen fertilizers, on the other hand, contributes to emissions of greenhouse gases and pollution of surface and groundwater. “Cotton in Azerbaijan is expected to be one of the crops experiencing the greatest yield decline due to climate change and rapid soil degradation,” Zaman said. “Taking advantage of isotopic techniques, such as the use of N-15, can help adapt to this situation, making the cotton sector more competitive as well as ensuring employment and improving the welfare of the rural population.” Azerbaijan has in the past been a leading producer and major exporter of cotton, harvesting more than 830,000 tonnes in the 1980s, which provided up to a quarter of the country’s income. However, the transition to a free market and the rapid growth of other industries in the 1990s contributed to cotton losing its key role in Azerbaijan's economy, with production falling to a record low of 31,000 tonnes in 2009. The project outcome shows the significant potential of climate-smart practices in increasing agricultural productivity. “Considering the total cotton growing areas of 105,000 hectares in Azerbaijan, a 10 per cent adoption of the IAEA climate-smart agricultural practices would produce 84,000 tonnes of cotton compared to 31,500 tonnes, representing a 166 per cent increase over conventional cotton farming practices,” Zaman said. “Seeing the extraordinary success in applying climate-smart agricultural practices in this project, provides an exciting indication and tremendous promise on how it can help Azerbaijan to increase their cotton production significantly and thus, greatly impact Azerbaijani economy.”  The IAEA, through its technical cooperation programme and through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre, assists countries in applying  climate-smart agricultural methods to increase productivity, adapting agricultural systems to climate change and reducing their impact on the environment. The Joint Centre also supports research in this area. In a coordinated research project focused on the use of climate-smart nuclear solutions to help minimize the farming impacts on climate , scientists from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Iran and Pakistan reported a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases. Other  climate-smart agricultural practices are helping to develop balanced diet solutions for livestock amid recurring droughts in Angola; to improve water use and nutrient management on soils in Kenya; and to combat soil erosion in Tunisia.  

Rehabilitation allows women, men and children of all ages to be as independent as possible in everyday activities, enabling participation in education, work, recreation, and meaningful life roles, such as taking care of family. Similarly, access to vital assistive technology (AT) can help people see and hear better, help people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities interact more effectively with others, and support people with psychosocial disabilities to manage and work through difficult times.    In Azerbaijan, the government has committed to strengthening and scaling up rehabilitation and AT services and is developing a comprehensive roadmap to do so. WHO/Europe is actively supporting these efforts by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population.   Supporting rehabilitation and AT efforts In the last 2 years, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of Norway, WHO has promoted several rehabilitation and AT activities in Azerbaijan, including a rapid-AT Assessment (r-ATA) household survey that collected information from 5597 respondents across 1156 households in 8 economic zones in Azerbaijan. The results of the r-ATA survey were extremely useful in providing key information about the demand for AT in the country.     On a global scale, WHO is implementing ambitious initiatives to strengthen rehabilitation in health systems and scale up access to AT products and services. The initiatives aim to improve people’s functioning, which in turn leads to greater participation and improved quality of life, especially for persons with disabilities or noncommunicable diseases, as well as healthy ageing.  Assessing rehabilitation and AT services in Azerbaijan   A team of WHO experts recently assessed the current state of rehabilitation and AT services in Azerbaijan using 2 WHO standardized tools: the Systematic Assessment of the Rehabilitation Situation (STARS) and the Assistive Technology Capacity Assessment (ATA-C). The team also provided technical assistance in integrating rehabilitation and AT into a national action plan.    Results from the assessment were shared with different government authorities, people who need access to vital rehabilitation and AT services, and groups of service providers. Their feedback has been collected and will feed into a list of recommendations that will help further develop the Government of Azerbaijan’s rehabilitation and AT strategy and, ultimately, the national roadmap for health.

Creating a safe space for fathers to jointly reflect on and question the factors that frame gender inequalities affecting power dynamics within Azerbaijani families was the most important achievement of the Papa Schools project implemented in Azerbaijan. “At first, I believed I would be the only father to join, and was apprehensive that the project would simply fail”, says Orkhan Nadirov from Baku, a father of a 2 year-old boy, “as the topic is not a popular one among men in Azerbaijan, given predominant traditional notions of masculinity in our society”. Orkhan and his wife were looking forward to the arrival of their first child. However, the end of the first trimester of pregnancy was marked with devastating news that a child was having an inherited blood disorder - thalassemia and the family was recommended to terminate pregnancy. “It was a major dilemma for us; however, me and my wife decided together that we would choose a different path”. Needless to note that Orkhan and his wife were very well aware of the implications of this decision for them. “We started exploring academic literature and searching for resources that could provide any guidance for maintaining effective relationships in families that have kids with similar disorders. All of a sudden, my wife came across information on Papa Schools, and I made up my mind to join. Though my expectations were not as high since I was skeptical that other fathers would interrupt the learning process, I decided to give it a try and see if this could have given me more leverage to explore the concept of a responsible fatherhood”. Following several months of engagement with a Papa School, Orkhan believes that he managed to gain more than he had previously expected: “What’s unique about this methodology is that despite the focus on father engagement, the information shared was actually concerning both parents, and I was sharing the summary of each session with my wife back home. And so I had a chance to further explore many of these topics through insights provided by my wife and through our shared reflections on many of those topics.”   Orkhan is not the only beneficiary of the project. Papa Schools brought together fathers in three different regions of Azerbaijan - Baku, Ganja and Gazakh in the framework of the “EU 4 Gender Equality“ programme jointly implemented by UNFPA and UN Women with financial support of the European Union. A total of 126 men with almost equal shares of both fathers and fathers-to-be joined and actively participated at the sessions. One of the important aspects of the Papa School project Orkhan liked the most is the opportunity for the like-minded fathers to remain actively engaged in promoting the concept of responsible fatherhood beyond the project lifetime. Sahil Aliyev, a 28 year-old father-to-be is one of those men Orkhan met at the Papa School. Sahil joined the course with deeply entrenched stereotypes about gender equality in mind, but managed to explore different concepts of what gender equitable relations were about. Sahil believes that everyone in a society with prevailing patriarchal norms is born into a culture that shapes people’s behaviors and attitudes by forcing them to pick up dominant discriminatory social norms: “At family, at school, at work, we are being taught that men should be masculine. I remember my mother saying that men should have the final word on everything in the family, even if he is not right”. During the eight-week Papa School courses, the trained experts and facilitators delivered a range of sessions on gender-based discrimination and violence related issues in Azerbaijan. Alongside this, the participants were also given a chance to explore the concepts of family planning and reproductive health, intimate partnerships, abortions, femicides, lack of women’s participation and benefits of women’s empowerment. Sahil was one of those men who were actively participating at every session, and he believes that he gained more insights into the topic he had never discussed before. “I found myself talking about gender, sex and family relationships - topics that I have never openly discussed with strangers. To be honest, now I admit that I was violent towards my ex-girlfriend by limiting her access to some possible opportunities or imposing restrictions on the way she was dressing-up. But I really wasn’t cognizant about this until participating in the Papa School sessions on gender-based violence. I cannot say that I have managed to get rid of all these stereotypes over the course of these past eight weeks, but I can state confidently that I feel sorry for the way I behaved before. And what I'm sure of now is that having been able to reflect on many of these issues, I’ll do my best to treat my current partner with empathy and full respect.” It is worth mentioning that another distinctive attribute of the project is its focus on the diversity of experiences and expertise of those involved to lead the effort. "I liked the multidimensional approach of the project. In the course of these past eight weeks, we had a chance to closely interact with not only gender experts, but also doctors, pediatricians and psychologists who were sharing their perspectives with us", says Fuad Valiyev from Ganja, the 32-year-old father of two, who was symbolically granted the “Father of the Year” award at the project’s closing ceremony. Fuad believes in the value of shared workload within the household for promoting gender equality in the family. He says, "I think what makes me a responsible father and a supportive husband is that I try to equally share household and childcare responsibilities with my wife." Papa Schools have been launched only recently in the three regions of Azerbaijan and it will definitely take time to see the immediate effects of this intervention. However, this model has really managed to showcase a forward looking strategy of how men like Orkhan, Sahil and others in traditional patriarchal societies could join as allies in the efforts to transform unequal social norms by promoting gender equitable behaviors and attitudes and ensuring inclusive and healthy family relationships through men’s active and responsible engagement.    

Olga Babayeva, a 52-year-old farmer from Samukh region in northwestern Azerbaijan, is a well-recognized businesswoman in her community. Apart from being the biggest producer of vegetable seeds for onions, coriander, dill, radishes and parsley, among others, she is also known for her strong support of women’s engagement in farming.  She was attracted to farm life as a young child, spending her summer holidays helping her parents plant vegetables. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a nineteen-year-old Olga became the first young female farmer in Fuzuli village when she started renting a 10-hectare plot to grow beetroot. “But it was not that easy,” says Olga with a smile, who now cultivates a total of 14 hectares. For more than 30 years she has been active in agriculture beyond just growing crops. She also manages the vegetable seed cooperative Barakat (meaning “blessing” in Azeri) with 1 400 members and established the Samukh Seed and Vegetable Corporation that ensures laboratory testing for seed sorting and drying. Today, the corporation sells seeds in both national and foreign markets. “In the beginning, I faced situations where tractor drivers (who were usually men) would refuse to cultivate my land just because I was a woman, or officials in the local government body neglected my requests as they did not accept the fact that a woman can be engaged in farming professionally,” reminisces Olga. “‘Your place is in the kitchen, not on the land’ this is what women hear very often.” Empowering rural women through agriculture has great potential in the country. According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, 77 percent of women reside in rural areas, and the percentage of female entrepreneurs engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing is higher than men (32 versus 24 percent). However, women face a number of challenges, such as a gender pay gap, informality of jobs and a triple work burden (housework, production for the household and wage work). In total, women do an average of six hours of unpaid work, while men spend only two hours on the same. Additionally, poor access to social services hinders many women from leveraging their full potential.   “As I was divorced with a little son and daughter on my hands, I had no other option than to earn a living to survive. I had to work much harder than any other fellow male farmer as I bore triple responsibilities: working on the farm and at home, as well as engaging in village initiatives,” notes Olga. “Today, my children are adults, but the perceptions and challenges are still there.” As a result of her experiences, she knows very well the difficulties women face in agriculture as she had to go through many of them. This is why FAO believed her the perfect person to mentor other women farmers. To this end, Olga received several FAO trainings on farming and business management and participated in a training for trainers’ workshop. Since 2020, FAO, in cooperation with the Government of Azerbaijan, has been providing support to rural women to improve their knowledge and farming practices through innovative technologies in cultivating fruit trees and vegetables, cattle breeding and poultry raising, among other areas. “Women are engaged in agricultural production; however, they tend to have less training in sales and marketing and have little information about micro-credits and non-financial services,” points out Flora Poladova, leading FAO project expert in Azerbaijan. “With the improved farming techniques, they will be able to do commercial farming. Increasing their income through essential business, marketing and leadership skills will, in fact, raise women's self-confidence and make their voices heard.” “FAO plays an intermediary role between female farmers and state and private service providers. We are working now to bridge this, so that will help women to learn about free advisory services, soft loans and other services,” adds Poladova. To keep up the momentum, the FAO project mobilizes rural women’s groups and has already succeeded in connecting over 100 female farmers from 20 regions in Azerbaijan. As part of this network, Olga communicates with other members and shares farming knowledge via a mobile messaging app. “I am so happy to be part of the big changes ahead!” beams Olga. “I am grateful women are not alone, and support is there. Women and girls deserve fair opportunities and treatment and, once financially stable, they will have a stronger voice to be equally recognized.” Through this project, FAO is working with the Government of Azerbaijan to better respond to current and future challenges in the agriculture sector, engaging women as key to making the sector more productive and inclusive.