Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan is a rising provider of development co-operation, leveraging and sharing its transformation from a transition economy to an upper middle-income country. Over the past decade, Azerbaijan has significantly reduced its dependence on foreign assistance while increasing its development co-operation with key partners. Azerbaijan’s total official development assistance (ODA) (USD 49.2 million, preliminary data) stayed the same in 2022, representing 0.09% of gross national income (GNI).
Find the methodological notes behind the profile here.
The policy framework for Azerbaijan’s development co-operation is directly derived from its international commitments, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, along with its foreign policy priorities. The Azerbaijan International Development Agency’s (AIDA) primary purpose is to support global peace, security and prosperity. The majority of Azerbaijan’s assistance is provided bilaterally. Guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, the overarching objective of Azerbaijan’s aid programme is to combat poverty, focusing on areas where Azerbaijan has a comparative advantage in sharing its expertise, such as effective public service delivery, education, healthcare, labour and social protection, youth empowerment, and humanitarian assistance.
Azerbaijan provided USD 49.2 million (preliminary data) of ODA in 2022 (USD 50.9 million in constant terms), representing 0.09% of gross national income1, which is the same share of GNI as in 2020. Azerbaijan is not in line with its international commitments to achieve a 0.7% ODA/GNI ratio by 2030. All of Azerbaijan’s ODA in 2020 was provided in the form of grants.
Since Azerbaijan did not provide data in 2021, the profile is based on figures for 2020 and preliminary data for 2022.
In 2020, Azerbaijan provided most of its ODA bilaterally. Gross bilateral ODA was 75% of the total ODA. A share of 48% of gross bilateral ODA was channelled through multilateral organisations (earmarked contributions). Azerbaijan allocated 25% of the total ODA as core contributions to multilateral organisations.
In 2022, Azerbaijan provided USD 10.8 million of gross bilateral ODA to Ukraine to respond to the impacts of Russia’s war of aggression.
Also in 2022, Azerbaijan provided USD 6.5 million in ODA for the COVID-19 response.
In 2020, Azerbaijan provided USD 27.2 million of gross ODA to the multilateral system, an increase of 24% in real terms from 2019. Of this, USD 11.1 million was core multilateral ODA, while non-core contributions were earmarked for a specific country, region, theme or purpose.
In 2020, 48% of Azerbaijan’s total contribution to multilateral organisations was allocated to the United Nations (UN) entities, followed by other multilateral organisations (40%) and the World Bank Group (7%).
The UN system received USD 13.2 million of Azerbaijan’s gross ODA to the multilateral system, mainly through earmarked contributions. Out of the total ODA volume to the UN system, the top three UN recipients of Azerbaijan’s support (core and earmarked contributions) were: WHO (USD 9.4 million), FAO (USD 2.3 million) and the UN Secretariat (USD 0.4 million).
See the section on Geographic and sectoral focus of ODA for the breakdown of bilateral allocations, including ODA earmarked through the multilateral development system. Learn more about multilateral development finance.
In 2020, Azerbaijan’s bilateral spending increased compared to the previous year. It provided USD 33.3 million of gross bilateral ODA (which includes earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations).
Azerbaijan channelled bilateral ODA mainly through the public sector and multilateral organisations, as earmarked funding.
In 2020, Azerbaijan’s bilateral ODA was primarily focused on Asia and the Middle East. USD 7.8 million was allocated to South and Central Asia (23%), USD 6.6 million to the Middle East (20%) and USD 3.8 million (12%) to developing countries in Europe. Africa and developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean were the main regional recipients of Azerbaijan’s earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations. USD 7.7 million (23%) of bilateral ODA was unallocated by region.
In 2020, 42.6% of gross bilateral ODA went to Azerbaijan’s top 10 recipients. Its top 10 recipients are mainly in the Middle East, South and Central Asia and Europe, such as Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan and Albania. This is in line with Azerbaijan’s focus on its immediate neighbourhood. The share of gross bilateral ODA that was not allocated by country was 30% of this unallocated bilateral ODA spent on refugees in the donor country.
In 2020, the least developed countries (LDCs) received 14% of Azerbaijan’s gross bilateral ODA (USD 4.8 million). Azerbaijan allocated the highest share of gross bilateral ODA (35%) to lower middle-income countries in 2020, noting that 30% was unallocated by income group.
In 2020, more than three-quarters of Azerbaijan’s bilateral ODA was allocated to social infrastructure and services. Investments in this area accounted for 82% of bilateral ODA commitments (USD 27.4 million), with a strong focus on health and population policies (USD 23.3 million). ODA commitments to production sectors amounted to USD 2.2 million (7%), mainly including activities in the agriculture sector. Bilateral humanitarian assistance amounted to USD 1.3 million (4% of bilateral ODA).
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responsible for setting the overall development co-operation policy. AIDA was established in 2011 under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide timely and co-ordinated international assistance. Project implementation is the responsibility of AIDA. In addition, the agency co-ordinates the activities of other government actors (primarily line ministries) involved in development co-operation, ensuring activities are consistent with Azerbaijan’s foreign policy objectives.
Azerbaijan International Development Agency (AIDA): http://aida.mfa.gov.az/en
Participant in the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). Reporting to the OECD activity-level data since 2016 on 2014-15 activities.
The methodological notes provide further details on the definitions and statistical methodologies applied, including the grant-equivalent methodology, core and earmarked contributions to multilateral organisations, country programmable aid, channels of delivery, bilateral ODA unspecified/unallocated, bilateral allocable aid, the gender equality policy marker, and the environment markers.
Note
← 1. DAC members adopted the grant-equivalent methodology starting from their reporting of 2019 data as a more accurate way to count the donor effort in development loans. See the methodological notes for further details.