The World Bank on Tuesday announced the approval of six development projects valued at about $2.1885 billion for execution in Nigeria in 2020.
The World Bank said on Wednesday the approved projects are to support Nigeria’s development priorities focused on improving immunisation, providing an enabling business environment for the private sector, expanding the digital economy to promote job creation, and increasing the capacity of public and private sector on governance, social and environmental safeguards.
“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,” World Bank Group President, David Malpass, said in the statement.
“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,” World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said.
Details of the projects include the “Immunization Plus & Malaria Progress by Accelerating Coverage and Transforming Services (IMPACT)” to accelerate the coverage and transforming services for malaria and improved child survival programme for human capital in Nigeria.
The project is targeted at strengthening health systems to deliver effective primary health care and improve immunisation, malaria control, and child and maternal health in selected states.
The World Bank said the projects aims at broadening vaccination coverage, increase the percentage of children under five who sleep under insecticide-treated nets from 28 to 41 per cent.
The project to be financed under concessional terms through an International Development Association (IDA) credit of $650 million, will also improve the percentage of women who receive post-natal check-ups from 47 to 55 per cent.
Another approved project was the Nigeria Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project to upgrade rural roads and improve connectivity and access to local markets and agro-business services in 13 states.
Specifically, the World Bank said the project will upgrade about 1,600 kilometers of rural roads and improve 65 agro-logistics centres to boost the proportion of the population who live within two kilometers of an all-season road by up to 10 per cent.
The project is to be co-financed through an IDA credit of $280 million, $230 million from the French Development Agency, and $65m from the Nigerian government.
Also, the World Bank approved 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.
The project will help Nigeria, especially marginalised groups, to access welfare-enhancing services as well as enhance the ID system’s legal and technical safeguards to protect personal data and privacy.
The other project is the Ogun State Economic Transformation Project to catalyse 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.
The World Bank said the project will facilitate collaboration between farmers and agribusinesses improve STEM teaching in up to 70 per cent of public secondary schools.
This is to be financed through an IDA credit of $250 million.
On the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills Project, the World Bank said this 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.
The project is aimed at increasing the female enrollment rate from 13 to 23 per cent in technical colleges and provide recognised skills and certification to 3,000 youth after they complete an informal apprenticeship. The project is to be financed through an IDA credit of $200 million.
The Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Project will strengthen capacity in managing procurement, environmental and social standards in the public and private sectors.
This will enhance the skills of over 21,000 people and help 4,000 professionals become certified in procurement, environment and social standards.
It will also ensure that accredited degree programs meet International best practice and Good International Industry Practice in these areas.
The project, which will help tackle corruption and the risk of environmental or social harm as investments are implemented, will be financed through an IDA credit of $80 million.
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