Exclusive: WB officials talk ways of boosting human capital index in Azerbaijan

World Bank Director for Human Development in Europe and Central Asia Fadia Saadah spoke to Azernews on the sidelines of the event dedicated to the presentation of "Azerbaijan's Human Capital Review” report, organized with the support of the European Union, in Baku.

Asked what can be done to boost the human index in Azerbaijan amid the latter's recent provision of social payments and increased salaries and their impact, she said.

Speaking about the current situation surrounding Azerbaijan’s human capital index, which measures the expected productivity of the next generation of workers based on their education and health outcomes, Saadah confirmed that the Azerbaijani government is making progress in this regard.

“I think there is a lot of room for improvement. The government is working on a number of affairs but some of them are not so easy to address, they will take time and effort. So, it depends on how much we prioritize those,” she said in a comment.

According to Saadah, some of those reforms are policies in the right direction.

“We are working on the employment and other aspects. The discussion is really about how to increase the coverage and still how stay efficient. And that is the balance they will strive to achieve. So, there is space for expanding some of these programs but at the same time, to be quite efficient in dealing with them,” the official noted.

Furthermore, Azernews also asked World Bank’s Practice Manager Cem Mete if Azerbaijan’s policies such as social payments and salary increases have any effect on the index.

“The construction of the human capital index is so that it is a conversation starter, not an ender: same with policymaking. So Azerbaijan already made great progress on that. But what you want to do is take it as a signal on the overall education and social protection policies but not redesign specific policies to increase the human capital index per se. As you improve and follow the current policies, they will increase.

According to him, one should follow comprehensive policies, such as education and social protection that are correlated, so there will be improvements in the index.

Mete also pointed out that some of those indicators are simply there because of their availability and not their importance.

“So again, it’s a conversation starter, it’s a signal for policymakers and will capture improvement over time but it’s not a substitute for sectored policies,” he finalized.