Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise works with CBT Azerbaijan to support home based industries.
NHE recently entered into cooperation with a local partner, CBT Azerbaijan, a Community Based Tourism initiative. Working with a number of local partners, NHE’s overall aim is to contribute to sustainable community development in Azerbaijan. The NHE-CBT partnership aims to utilize CBT’s presence in the regions working with local home based businesses, as well as to provide a further income basis for some of the present beneficiaries within NHE's agricultural and human resources development work. The Enchanted Cottage ship centrally located in Baku's Old City, started through NHE's Cottage Industries Promotion project, is likely to be a focal area for NHE’s cooperation with CBT.
Training and support
NHE’s Cottage Industries Promotion Project focuses on improving local businesses through training and support in identifying markets for local artisans. In the future, Enchanted Cottage shop, which already serves as the hub for the newly established network of home producers, may also serve as a reservation point for CBT in Baku. The cooperation is currently on the planning stage and joint project activity has not yet started but NHE Project Manager, Neal Williams, comments “NHE sees the CBT project as a specific way of helping home based businesses. Since this is one of NHE's goals, we can have greater impact in partnership with CBT. By combining similar small businesses, it allows NHE to offer greater services and attract more buyers for the handicraft project. Because of shared values and strategy, the partnership is mutually beneficial.”
Presently, CBT has nine destinations in Azerbaijan and focuses their efforts on developing the skill set of appointed local branch managers for CBT destinations. These managers effectively own their own branch of the CBT Azerbaijan network and are given significant responsibility to maintain their own accounting, client relations, quality control, training, recruitment, and more.
