Biography

Education

Or­dukhan Gahra­man­za­da grad­u­at­ed with a Gold Medal from the “Young Tal­ents” Lyceum under Baku State Uni­ver­si­ty in 2018 and was ad­mit­ted to ADA Uni­ver­si­ty the same year with 651 points. A year ear­li­er he had won second place in the Chem­istry cat­e­go­ry of the 6th na­tion­al con­test “Sci­en­tists of To­mor­row”. At ADA Uni­ver­si­ty he earned a BA in In­ter­na­tion­al Stud­ies with dis­tinc­tion in 2022 and a Master of Public Ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2024. During his stud­ies he re­ceived the Haji Zey­nal­ab­din Tagiyev Social Award, and in the autumn se­mes­ter of 2019 he stud­ied po­lit­i­cal sci­ence and diplo­ma­cy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tartu, Es­to­nia, on an Eras­mus+ ex­change.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2024 he has been a full-time PhD can­di­date in Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence at the Acad­e­my of Public Ad­min­is­tra­tion under the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Azer­bai­jan, writ­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on “Azer­bai­jan's Geopol­i­tics in the Con­text of the Trans­for­ma­tion of the Caspi­an and Black Sea Region”. As a stu­dent he com­pet­ed in British Par­lia­men­tary and Lin­coln-Dou­glas de­bat­ing, took part in Model UN con­fer­ences, and in 2019 re­ceived the Best Del­e­gate Award at Youth­MUN and the Best Po­si­tion Paper Award at UNEC MUN IV.

Student and youth organisations

He co-found­ed the “Eras­mus Stu­dent Net­work-Azer­bai­jan” Public Union, the na­tion­al chap­ter of Europe's largest stu­dent vol­un­teer as­so­ci­a­tion (more than 1,000 higher ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions in 42 coun­tries), rep­re­sent­ed Azer­bai­jan as Na­tion­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive at in­ter­na­tion­al meet­ings and train­ing events in Bu­da­pest, Lisbon and Is­tan­bul in 2019–2020, and served as its Pres­i­dent from July 2020 to Oc­to­ber 2021. In 2019 he was elect­ed Consul for Gen­er­al Ed­u­ca­tion in the ADA Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment, and in 2020–2021 he was a teach­ing as­sis­tant at ADA Uni­ver­si­ty. In Oc­to­ber 2020, during the Pa­tri­ot­ic War, as a member of the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee of the Khuda­farin Media Centre, he was re­spon­si­ble for pre­par­ing train­ing ma­te­ri­als on com­mu­ni­cat­ing the his­tor­i­cal and legal as­pects of the Garabagh con­flict on social media for ses­sions that reached hun­dreds of stu­dents.

From 2020 to 2023 he worked at the Azer­bai­jan Stu­dent Youth Or­ga­ni­za­tions' Union, the na­tion­al um­brel­la of the stu­dent youth or­gan­i­sa­tions of higher ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions, as head of de­part­ment and then Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al. He co­or­di­nat­ed work to strength­en the role of stu­dent youth or­gan­i­sa­tions in im­ple­ment­ing state youth policy across the re­gions and rep­re­sent­ed the Union at the OSCE Warsaw Human Di­men­sion Con­fer­ence and a number of other rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al plat­forms. At the same time he served as Na­tion­al Pro­gram Di­rec­tor of En­ac­tus Azer­bai­jan, the na­tion­al chap­ter of a social en­trepreneur­ship plat­form op­er­at­ing in 34 coun­tries. In 2022 he led the na­tion­al del­e­ga­tion to the En­ac­tus World Cup in San Juan, where the Azer­bai­jani team reached the world's Top 16 for the second time in its his­to­ry. From 2020 to 2024 he sat on the Board of the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly of Youth Or­ga­ni­za­tions of the Re­pub­lic of Azer­bai­jan (NAYORA), and from 2021 to 2025 he served on the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee of YayFest, the region's largest youth fes­ti­val, held every summer over eight weeks with about 2,000 young people with the sup­port of the Youth Foun­da­tion.

Non-Aligned Movement Youth Organization

From Oc­to­ber 2021 he chaired the Non-Aligned Move­ment Youth Net­work, cre­at­ed during Azer­bai­jan's chair­man­ship of the Move­ment under the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Ilham Aliyev, and from 2022 to March 2024 the NAM Youth Or­ga­ni­za­tion es­tab­lished on its basis. He headed the or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee of the first NAM Youth Summit, held in Baku and in Shusha, the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal of Azer­bai­jan, on 25–29 July 2022 with youth from 61 member states. The “Shusha Accord”, adopt­ed at the Shusha seg­ment of the Summit, trans­formed the Net­work into the NAM Youth Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

He de­liv­ered state­ments at the Baku Con­fer­ence of the Non-Aligned Move­ment Par­lia­men­tary Net­work (2022), the Summit-level Meet­ing of the Non-Aligned Move­ment Con­tact Group in re­sponse to COVID-19 in Baku (2023) and the meet­ings of NAM Min­is­ters of Ed­u­ca­tion and of ICT. In No­vem­ber 2022 he held the Or­ga­ni­za­tion's first brief­ing at UN Head­quar­ters in New York. In August 2023 he trav­elled to Cara­cas, Venezuela, to or­gan­ise the First Re­gion­al Forum of NAM Youth for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Car­ib­bean. Under his lead­er­ship an In­ter­na­tion­al Char­i­ty Fair was held in Baku for the first time with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the diplo­mat­ic mis­sions of more than 40 coun­tries, and 19 young del­e­gates from 18 member coun­tries ob­served the ex­tra­or­di­nary pres­i­den­tial elec­tion of 7 Feb­ru­ary 2024 as in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers. By the end of his tenure the Or­ga­ni­za­tion had grown into an in­ter­na­tion­al plat­form unit­ing young people from more than 50 member coun­tries, with its head­quar­ters in Baku.

On international platforms

On 2 Feb­ru­ary 2022, at the Youth Forum on the 25th an­niver­sary of Azer­bai­jan Youth Day at­tend­ed by Pres­i­dent Ilham Aliyev, he put a ques­tion to the Pres­i­dent on the vol­un­teer move­ment. On 15 Sep­tem­ber that year in Geneva he was a pan­el­list at the Bi­en­ni­al Panel Dis­cus­sion on the Right to De­vel­op­ment, “35 years on: policy path­ways to op­er­a­tional­is­ing the right to de­vel­op­ment”, at the 51st ses­sion of the UN Human Rights Coun­cil, mod­er­at­ed by Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Fed­eri­co Vil­le­gas, and on 26–30 Sep­tem­ber he de­liv­ered three ple­nary ad­dress­es at the OSCE Warsaw Human Di­men­sion Con­fer­ence. In Oc­to­ber, at the In­ter­na­tion­al High-Level Con­fer­ence on “In­ter­na­tion­al and Re­gion­al Border Se­cu­ri­ty and Man­age­ment Co­op­er­a­tion to Counter Ter­ror­ism and Pre­vent the Move­ment of Ter­ror­ists” in Dushanbe, he became the first youth speak­er of the Dushanbe Process on coun­ter­ing ter­ror­ism.

In 2023 he took part in the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York, spoke at the Nasser Fel­low­ship for In­ter­na­tion­al Lead­er­ship in Cairo, and in Sep­tem­ber served as Azer­bai­jan's of­fi­cial Youth Del­e­gate to the 78th ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. On 7 No­vem­ber, at the 11th World Forum for Democ­ra­cy of the Coun­cil of Europe in Stras­bourg, he spoke at the Forum talk “In­ter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty and Demo­crat­ic In­se­cu­ri­ty” and raised the prob­lem of land­mines in the lib­er­at­ed ter­ri­to­ries and drew at­ten­tion to Ar­me­nia's re­fusal to pro­vide mine­field maps as a se­ri­ous ob­sta­cle to the safe return of in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed per­sons. In Feb­ru­ary of that year he trav­elled with the del­e­ga­tion of the Agency for State Sup­port to Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­ga­ni­za­tions on a hu­man­i­tar­i­an mis­sion to earth­quake-hit Kahra­man­maraş.

At the Youth Foundation

From April 2024 he was Acting Head, and from Jan­u­ary to Oc­to­ber 2025 Head, of the De­part­ment for Work with Youth Or­gan­i­sa­tions at the Youth Foun­da­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Azer­bai­jan. In this post he or­gan­ised sup­port for more than 100 youth or­gan­i­sa­tions through struc­tural grants, pe­ri­od­ic grant com­pe­ti­tions and non-com­pet­i­tive grant fi­nanc­ing, and took part in up­dat­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for grant fi­nanc­ing. He con­trib­uted to es­tab­lish­ing the Global South NGO Plat­form, a COP29 ini­tia­tive, and in April 2025 mod­er­at­ed a side event at the first meet­ing of NGOs of the D-8 coun­tries. He co­or­di­nat­ed, on behalf of the Youth Foun­da­tion, the “Young Bee­keep­er” project in Khizi dis­trict, ini­ti­at­ed by Leyla Aliye­va, Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Heydar Aliyev Foun­da­tion.

From 2024 to 2026 he was a teach­ing as­sis­tant at the Fac­ul­ty of Law of Baku State Uni­ver­si­ty for cour­ses on transna­tion­al crim­i­nal law, the legal foun­da­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion in the cul­tur­al sphere and the cul­tur­al leg­is­la­tion of for­eign states.

Cultural heritage and intercultural dialogue

Since Oc­to­ber 2025 he has been Head of Di­vi­sion at MEMİM, sec­ond­ed to the In­ter­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion De­part­ment of the Min­istry of Cul­ture. As the Min­istry's co­or­di­na­tor and expert for the 1970 and 1954 Con­ven­tions, he con­trib­utes reg­u­lar­ly to Azer­bai­jan's replies to UNESCO Sec­re­tar­iat ques­tion­naires on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the 1954 Hague Con­ven­tion and the 1970 Con­ven­tion, and he worked on the Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing be­tween the Min­istry and ICCROM. He serves as the co­or­di­na­tor des­ig­nat­ed by the Min­istry of Cul­ture of the Re­pub­lic of Azer­bai­jan for pro­vid­ing the rel­e­vant opin­ions and re­spons­es to re­quests in the two In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice cases on the Ap­pli­ca­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion (Azer­bai­jan v. Ar­me­nia and Ar­me­nia v. Azer­bai­jan).

In De­cem­ber 2025 and May 2026 he took part, in the del­e­ga­tion of Azer­bai­jan at UNESCO Head­quar­ters in Paris, in the meet­ings under the 1954 Hague Con­ven­tion, in­clud­ing the 20th meet­ing of the Com­mit­tee for the Pro­tec­tion of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty in the Event of Armed Con­flict, and in the ses­sions of the Sub­sidiary Com­mit­tee of the 1970 Con­ven­tion and of the ICPRCP. In April 2026 in Gaziantep, at the Strate­gic Co­op­er­a­tion Con­fer­ence and Tech­ni­cal Work­shop on Turkic Cul­tur­al Her­itage: Com­bat­ting Il­lic­it Traf­fick­ing of Cul­tur­al Prop­er­ty, he pre­sent­ed, joint­ly with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Min­istry of In­ter­nal Af­fairs and the State Cus­toms Com­mit­tee, Azer­bai­jan's legal frame­work, the work on doc­u­ment­ing the cul­tur­al her­itage of lib­er­at­ed Garabagh and East­ern Zangazur, and the legal po­si­tion on cul­tur­al prop­er­ty re­moved under oc­cu­pa­tion. As a member of the work­ing group on the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the OIC Cul­ture Fes­ti­val: Baku Cre­ative Week 2025, held in part­ner­ship with the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Is­lam­ic Co­op­er­a­tion, he con­trib­uted to the prepa­ra­tion of the Baku Com­mu­niqué on Cre­ative In­dus­tries adopt­ed at the Fes­ti­val, and he served on the work­ing group on the or­gan­i­sa­tion of Turkic World Week (2026), held in im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Order of Pres­i­dent Ilham Aliyev of 22 Oc­to­ber 2025.

Since Jan­u­ary 2026 he has headed the In­ter­na­tion­al Ini­tia­tives De­part­ment of GUIDE. He is a member of the work­ing group on the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the 7th World Forum on In­ter­cul­tur­al Di­a­logue (Baku, 27–29 Oc­to­ber 2026), is re­spon­si­ble for re­la­tions with its guests from more than 100 coun­tries and con­trib­utes to the prepa­ra­tion of the Forum's sub­stan­tive doc­u­ments. He is lead co­or­di­na­tor of the first Youth Forum of the World Forum, held in Guba on 24–26 Oc­to­ber 2026 with the Min­istry of Cul­ture, the Min­istry of Youth and Sports and the United Na­tions Al­liance of Civ­i­liza­tions, and co­or­di­nates the Youth Di­a­logue seg­ment, one of the Forum's main seg­ments, to be held at the Heydar Aliyev Center on 28 Oc­to­ber 2026.