Migration as a Mirror of the Economy: What Leaves Azerbaijan — and What Remains

The International Monetary Fund’s latest economic outlook for 2026–2028 reads less like a technical forecast and more like a map of a changing world. As major economies struggle with slowing growth, debt pressures and geopolitical fragmentation, some of the fastest-growing countries are no longer found in traditional centres of global power.

Azerbaijan’s push to digitise its transport and logistics system is no longer just a policy ambition. It is increasingly visible in the numbers — uneven, but directional — that point to a system in transition from infrastructure to coordination.

Azerbaijan’s economy entered 2026 in a familiar configuration: externally resilient and fiscally supported by hydrocarbons, yet domestically constrained by weak consumer demand and limited diversification. First-quarter data point to macroeconomic stability, but the trajectory in the second quarter will depend less on oil — which continues to provide support — and more on whether domestic demand begins to recover.

On April 23, a regular meeting of the Commission on the Efficient Use of Water Resources was held under the chairmanship of Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev. During the meeting, the participants discussed the operational adjustment of the functioning regimes of the country’s main water basins and reservoirs under conditions of a period of increased water availability.