The World Bank yesterday approved six projects, worth $22.2 billion to support Nigeria's development priorities in key areas of improving immunization and enabling a stronger business environment for the private sector.
Others are, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation, and increasing public and private sector capacity on governance and social and environmental safeguards.
Commenting on the approved programmes, the World Bank Group President, David Malpass, said that "Nigeria is central to the World Bank Group's mission of tackling extreme poverty.
The World Bank is carefully targeting its support on high impact projects as the country works to tackle corruption and lift 100 million of its people out of poverty."
Similarly, the Breton Woods institution's Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said "these projects focus squarely on delivering better services for Nigerians: ensuring that children are immunized and sleep under mosquito nets, building better roads especially in rural areas, and providing Nigeria's poorest citizens with a unique identification that will make social safety nets and services more effective."
The specifics on the projects show that immunization plus & malaria progress by accelerating overage and transforming services to be financed under concessional terms through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of $650m, will strengthen health systems to deliver effective primary health care and improve immunization, malaria control, and child and maternal health in selected states.
The Nigeria rural access and agricultural marketing project programme will upgrade rural roads and improve connectivity and access to local markets and agribusiness services in 13 states. The project is co-financed through an IDA credit of $280 million, $230 million from the French Development Agency, and $65m from the Government of Nigeria.
The Nigeria digital Identification for development project will support the National Identity Management Commission to increase the number of persons who have a national identification number (NIN) reaching about 150 million in the next three years.
According to the World Bank, it is a co-financed through an IDA credit of $115 million, $100 million from the French Development Agency, and $215 million from the European Investment Bank.
Also, the Ogun State Economic Transformation Project will catalyze private investment in Ogun State by improving the business environment, strengthening the linkages between agricultural producers, suppliers and service providers, and providing training and apprenticeships for women and farmers. This will be financed through an IDA credit of $250 million.
The innovation development and effectiveness in the acquisition of skills project will strengthen the skills of 50,000 Nigerian students and enhance the capacity of technical teachers to better equip them for jobs in the formal and informal sectors. This is financed through an IDA credit of $200 million.
Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Project will strengthen capacity in managing procurement, environmental and social standards in the public and private sectors. The project will enhance the skills of over 21,000 people and help 4,000 professionals become certified in procurement, environment and social standards. This is financed through an IDA credit of $80 million.
