If Azerbaijan is to avoid the 'natural resource curse' it must invest substantially in training projects such as those run by the Baku Summer Energy School and the Azerbaijan Development Agency (ADA), a Harvard professor has claimed.

Speaking to the ADA's online journal Azerbaijan in the World, Jeffery Frankel, who served in the council of economic advisors during Bill Clinton's tenure as US president, said that Azerbaijan must avoid the tendency to invest in "high-visibility projects with few long-term positive consequences".

He explained that such practice is common among oil and gas nations suffering the 'natural resources curse'.

"Even the countries that say they are going to save the oil revenue end up not doing it, because it is so tempting just to spend," he told the journal.

Launching the fourth Summer Energy School earlier this month, the rector of the ADA Hafiz Pashayev told Open Central Asia that the goal of the school is to generate interest in Azerbaijan's burgeoning oil and gas industry among international students.

Oil and Gas Directory: Training and Development