Minister: Self-employment program to cover 10,000 families in Azerbaijan

By Trend

The self-employment program covered 6,000 families in Azerbaijan in 2018, which were provided with the assets to create small and medium-sized enterprises, Azerbaijani Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Sahil Babayev said, Trend reports on Aug. 1.

Babayev made the remarks in Baku at the meeting related to the socio-economic sphere and chaired by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

The minister stressed that, according to the presidential decree, the corresponding changes were made in relation to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, as a result of which 10,000 families are planned to be covered by a self-employment program.

"The number of appeals related to joining this program is increasing, and as a result, this figure reached 45,000 in January-June 2019,” Babayev said. “The vulnerable groups of the population, including the disabled, families of martyrs, and displaced people have the biggest advantage. Over 4,000 people underwent trainings and 1,100 of them received assets within the program since early 2019.”

“Moreover, the project of the United Nations Development Program has been used in this activity,” he added. “About 1,000 families will be provided with funds within this project.”

The minister stressed that the negotiations with the World Bank in this sphere are at the final stage.

“The World Bank will present the 'Support for self-employment in Azerbaijan' project to the Azerbaijani government in September, and next year, the project will be implemented in Azerbaijan,” he said. “We think that this project will contribute to the expansion of the self-employment program. The results of the six months of the year show that the population is successfully using the mechanism of the self-employment program."