UNECE assessment to help Azerbaijan sustain progress in its housing sector
Geneva, 19 May 2009 --
Despite a booming economy based on its oil and gas supplies, Azerbaijan has not always supported coherent urban development. While rapid economic growth has boosted the construction sector, much of the country’s existing housing stock and utilities infrastructure remains outdated and problematic.
The country faces a number of challenges, among them the lack of affordable housing, including social housing, illegal construction, poor living conditions in certain urban and rural areas, and inadequate maintenance and management of multi-family buildings. These phenomena are coupled with the exponential growth of luxury buildings in the centre of the capital, Baku, developed without any master plan or spatial planning strategy.
Efforts to rationally reorganize spatial growth and increase the quality and safety of buildings are being made, however. For instance, the country is engaged in a number of development plans. It is also updating its town planning, building and housing legislation; improving procedures to guarantee the quality and safety of buildings; promoting a coherent regional development; and completing a modern real estate registry system.
To support these actions, the Government of Azerbaijan has requested the United Nation Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), through its Committee on Housing and Land Management, to develop a Country Profile on the Housing Sector. The Profile will analyse current trends and offer recommendations and suggestions on how to improve urban planning and housing conditions in the country.
As elsewhere, in Azerbaijan the world financial crisis has affected the housing market, limiting accessibility to alternative investment schemes and sustainable financing mechanisms. The analysis and recommendations in Country Profile will also focus on identifying adequate housing finance systems along the lines of the envisaged State mortgage programme that is creating the foundations for a mortgage market to help middle-income families purchase their homes.
To develop the Country Profile for Azerbaijan, international experts interviewed selected specialists and professionals from relevant Ministries and State Agencies as well as international and local organizations, local authorities and developers in the first weeks of May. This is the fourteenth Country Profile developed by UNECE, and follows similar exercises in Kyrgyzstan (2008), Belarus (2008), for which reports will soon be available, and Georgia (2007). The Country Profile for Azerbaijan will be published in the coming months.
To learn more about Country Profiles, please visit the dedicated webpage.
For more information on the UNECE Housing programme, please contact:
Paola Deda
Secretary to the Committee on Housing and Land Management
UNECE Environment, Housing and Land Management Division
Phone: +41 (0)22 917 2553
E-mail: [email protected]
Ref: ECE/ENV/09/P10