Description:

Azerbaijan is a middle-income country with a gross national income per capita of US$ 2,600 (2007) and rich in mineral resources, namely oil and gas.  The country also has fertile agricultural land and a well-educated labor force with a strong entrepreneurial tradition. The oil and gas sector contributes approximately to 60 percent of GDP, while agriculture contributes to about 4 percent but provides livelihoods to just under half of all households.

The purpose of the two-year CASE Advisory Service Technical Assistance Project, which started on 1 September 2008 is to provide high-quality policy advising and training services to the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) of the Republic of Azerbaijan with the aim of upgrading the quality of economic policy-making process in this country and enhancing the institutional and human resources capacity of this key government agency.  CASE experts will concentrate their work on the following three thematic topics:

1. macroeconomic policy, including monetary and fiscal policies, price stability, budget reform, macroeconomic forecasting, impact of oil prices and revenue on economic growth and other macroeconomic indicators;

2.  structural and investment policies;

3. social policy.

The project is supported by the Regional Development Initiative funded by British Petroleum, Statoil, SOCAR, TPAO, Total, LUKoil, NICO, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ITOCHU, Devon, Amerada Hess, ENI, ConocoPhillips and INPEX.

At the end of the project, the Ministry of Economic Development will be left with better analytical and forecasting/projection tools and better technical capacity to diagnose the economic situation of Azerbaijan and to elaborate and propose adequate policy responses.

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