On 5 March, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved a $100 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) to help finance the Azerbaijan Employment Support Project, reported APA.az. 

The project is aimed at enhancing the  government’s national Self-Employment Program, by supporting start-ups in the services and production sectors, expanding the program to include an average of 5,000 additional beneficiaries per year, improving governance, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the program, and testing business support for beneficiaries with strong potential to their grow businesses. The project will be specifically targeted at women, young people, people with low education levels and IDPs in the country.

To this end, the project is aimed at achieving the following key outcomes: 1) increased share of self-employment programme businesses in operation for 24 months after the asset transfer has taken place (by vulnerable group) and  2) increased employment rate among registered jobseekers (by vulnerable group).

Beside the self-employment programme, the World Bank has 6 more ongoing projects in the country, namely: 1) the additional financing to internally displaced persons living standards and livelihoods, 2) additional financial support for the Azerbaijan Highway 3) the second national water supply and sanitation project, 4) the second rural investment project additional financing and 5) the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics for 2018-2030, Including Detailed Institution, Human and Information and Communication Technology Capacity Building Plans for 2018-2022 and 6) the Judicial Services and Smart Infrastructure Project.