Data for Development - Azerbaijan

 What's the Situation ?

 Life in Azerbaijan has altered considerably since 1990. The size of the population, where people live, how they earn a living and their financial stability have all been affected by the sweeping social and economic changes which followed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

 The disruption of ties with the former Soviet Union and communist central planning resulted in economic decline and institutional instability in Azerbaijan. The situation was exacerbated by the Daglik-Karabakh conflict and by the displacement of 800,000 people. Currently, internally displaced persons account for 10 per cent of the country's total population.

 Although per capita GDP has poverty increased in Azerbaijan, it is estimated that half of the population lives in poverty, and an additional 17 per cent in extreme poverty.

Because many young people are migrating to look for work and fertility rates have declined, the population of Azerbaijan is ageing

 The Government of Azerbaijan understands the importance of data in planning policies and programmes for national development and has already taken steps to improve the coverage and quality of data.

 But more help is needed, particularly to improve the resources and staff capability at the organizations which are involved in collecting and analyzing data about population and development and concerning reproductive health.

 For example, a number of independent surveys on reproductive health in Azerbaijan differ considerably from official statistics. Although the Azerbaijan's 2003 State Programme of Poverty Reduction and Economic Development (SPPRED) included some useful preliminary analysis, its findings are not divided by sex. Additional sex-disaggregated data needs to be collected and analyzed to use as a baseline and to monitor progress

 In the current economic circumstances, the Government needs support from its development partners to strengthen national capability so as to be able to handle all aspects of collecting, processing, analyzing and disseminating data.

 What's UNFPA doing to help ?

 UNFPA has been assisting Azerbaijan since 1994. Its early projects concentrated on meeting emergency reproductive health and population needs.

 Since then, UNFPA has supported a wide variety of activities in Azerbaijan to strengthen national capacity in issues relating to population and development and reproductive health:

• UNFPA has been supporting national institutions in analyzing and disseminating the results of the first post-independence census in 1999.
• The fund also provided training to staff from the Ministry of Labor and the national statistical committee on the links between population and development and on specific demographic techniques.
• UNFPA helped to open several libraries and training centers.
• It also supported the National Academy of Sciences in carrying out research on the socio-cultural aspects of gender.

 In its current programme for Azerbaijan, UNFPA plans to increase the availability of accurate, gender-sensitive information on population, development and the environment.  In order to achieve this, UNFPA will help through technical assistance, data collection, specialized surveys and research studies in which the importance of disaggregated data will be emphasized. It will help to establish a user-friendly national population databank. UNFPA also plans to support measures aimed at aligning Azerbaijan's registration and health statistics systems with the standards of the European Community and the World Health Organization. UNFPA will also help strengthen the capacities of selected national research and development institutions to provide demographic and population data.

 UNFPA also aims to strengthening the national capacity to give population dimensions a prominent role in development and environment policies.  To do this, UNFPA will develop an advocacy action plan and support the establishment of a national coordination council on population and development. The fund will support training and the development of a social mobilization strategy with NGOs, civil society organizations and the media. UNFPA will also help to upgrade institutional capacity to analyze research for population and social policy planning.  

 

 Current UNFPA projects in Azerbaijan:

 

Teaching Azerbaijan's Adolescents about Safe and Responsible Sexual and Reproductive Behavior

 Helping Azerbaijan to Integrate Population and Gender factors into its plans and programmes

 Expanding Reproductive Health Services to help save Women's Lives

 Helping Azerbaijan to gather Accurate, Gender-sensitive data on Population and Development

 Helping Azerbaijan to create a Law on Reproductive Health and Rights

 Training Azerbaijan's Doctors and Midwives

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