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Azerbaijan hosts international conference titled â€œSocial Assistance, Social Rehabilitation: Sustainable Developmentâ€

24 April 2009 14:04 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ilhame Isabalayeva - APA-Economics. In collaboration with the World Bank, Azerbaijanâ€™s Ministry of Labor and Social Protection has organized the second international conference titled â€œSocial Assistance, Social Rehabilitation: Sustainable Developmentâ€.

Minister of Labor and Social Protection Fizuli Alekberov said that targeted social assistance mechanisms, implemented in Azerbaijan since 2006, is considered as one of the best mechanism in the CIS in terms of how targeted it is.

According to him, the mechanism has an impact on poverty reduction in the country. Given that 67% of the social assistance beneficiaries were poor families previously, the rate is 48% now, he said.

The World Bankâ€™s Specialist for Human Resources in the South Caucasus Alexandra Posarak noted that the monitoring of targeted social assistance mechanism in Azerbaijan found good results.

In her words, the poor receive social assistance and effectiveness is 17%.

The World Bankâ€™s specialist for human resources development in Europe and Central Asia Lire Ersado underlined the importance of providing social assistance to poor families in order to close the divide between the poor and the rich.

She said emphasized the successful performance of the project in Azerbaijan, saying there is a need to revise the procedures, documentation and eligibility criteria for targeted social assistance.

The ministryâ€™s officer for poverty problems Natig Gasimov said over the past 3 years Azerbaijan has made several changes to the Law on Targeted Social Assistance, and set up a specialized corporate local network which covers the entire country.

According to him, the number of households receiving social assistance increased by 3.6 times, average allowance for each family rose by 2.3 times, allowance for children under one year old doubled and the criterion of need doubled over the past 3 years.