(MENAFN- AzerNews)
Sabina Mammadli read more 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.
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Sabina Mammadli is AzerNews' staff journalist, follow her on
Twitter: @sabinammdl