The government of Azerbaijan has fully utilized the World Bank (WB) loan for the Judicial Services and Smart Infrastructure Project, for the implementation of which the bank allocated $100 million in 2014, and $50 million in 2020 as additional financing, according to the WB report on the status and results of the project, Report informs.
"Overall, progress towards PDO achievement is rated as satisfactory.
The roll-out of the e-Court system, the e-Enforcement system and the installation of audio-video court hearing equipment in all court hearing rooms across Azerbaijan's six court jurisdiction is finalized.
After-sales-service contracts for the systems financed by the World Bank are in place to facilitate the transition over the next 12 months. Significant progress was made under Component E to develop prototypes to use business intelligence and artificial intelligence tools for enhanced service delivery and performance measurement and management," reads the report.
As part of the project, $43.84 million was allocated to improve the delivery of justice services, to strengthen institutional capacity, effectiveness and monitoring and evaluation ($25.8 million), expand and modernize justice infrastructure ($59.71 million), management and coordination of the project ($12.89 million), and for the implementation on a pilot basis of transformational technologies for the operation of the justice system and improvement of services provided ($4.83 million). $2.67 million has been allocated for contingencies.
According to the report, the number of beneficiaries of the project amounted to 4,974,467 people, among which the share of women beneficiaries reached 36.27%. In total, the project provided assistance to 53,497 internally displaced persons. This corresponds to a share of 1.08% of the total number of beneficiaries of the project.
The total number of internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan is about 650,000. Thus, the project supported about 8.2% of internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan.