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Ali Hasanov: Poverty level among IDPs falls to 12 percent

04 May 2017 09:13 (UTC +04:00)

The level of poverty among Azerbaijani internally displaced persons has decreased from 75 to 12 percent as a result of the measures taken over the past 13 years, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the State Committee for Affairs of Refugees and IDPs, YAP Deputy Chairman Ali Hasanov said in an interview published in “Azerbaijan” newspaper, APA reported.

“Twelve tent camps and 3 railway freight cars where internally displaced persons lived in difficult conditions were liquidated in 2007, and the last of 16 Finnish-type settlements were demolished in 2016. The IDP families living there were moved to new settlements,” wrote Hasanov.

He pointed out that 95 modern settlements and residential complexes comprised of multi-storey buildings with a total residential area of 3.2 million square meters have been built for refugees and IDPs to date.

“All necessary social facilities and technical infrastructure have been created in these settlements in order to ensure that people live comfortably, children get education and receive medical services. Specifically, up to now, 151 schools, 58 cultural and 59 medical institutions, 60 kindergartens, 2 Olympic sports complexes have been built and 730 km-long highway, 965 km water line, 1,625 km power line and 465 km gas pipeline have been constructed,” he said.

He noted that the largest school (for 1,300 pupils) for IDPs was constructed in Mushfigabad settlement of Garadagh district in 2012, and the major electric power substation for its capacity – 280 megawatts was put into use in 2007 in Aghjabadi.

To date, the housing conditions of 50,000 IDP families or 250,000 people have been improved, said Hasanov, mentioning that a total of 2.3 billion manats were allocated for the construction of new settlements. “Of these funds, 2 billion manats were allocated by the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ). 1.95 billion manats (97 percent) of these funds have been allocated over the past 13 years.”

The deputy PM noted that nearly 6.2 billion manats have been allocated to solve the problems of refugees and IDPs, of which 2.8 billion manats have been provided from the state budget, 2 billion manats by SOFAZ and 1.4 billion manats by international financial institutions and international organization operating in Azerbaijan.

“Of these funds, 5.2 billion manats (85 percent) have been spent over the past 13 years,” he said.

Hasanov went on to say that President Ilham Aliyev held 32 meetings in new settlements constructed for IDPs in 2003-2016.

According to him, over the past 13 years, the monthly allowance granted to IDPs has increased by 4 times and monthly payments for utilities by 4.5 times.

“Some 910 various microprojects worth 85.6 million manats have been implemented within the framework of the loan agreement signed between the Government of Azerbaijan and World Bank in order to improve infrastructure of the facilities densely populated by IDPs. In addition, 11,000 IDPs were granted microcredits for 7.7 million manats,” wrote the deputy PM.

“As a result of the measures taken over the past 13 years, the level of poverty among IDPs decreased from 75 to 12 percent. In 2016, 750 manats were spent for each IDPs,” added Hasanov.