By Tony Obiechina Abuja
The World Bank has pledged to increase its support to development programs in Nigeria.
The World Bank Country Director, Mr. Shubham Chaudhuri disclosed this when he led a World Bank team on a courtesy visit to the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Atiku Bagudu on Tuesday in Abuja.
Chaudhuri said his focus is to work with government at Federal and State levels in transforming the country, catalyzing private investment and job creation, and also investing in children and creating opportunities for Nigeria’s youth and women.
Addressing the press shortly after his meeting with the minister, Chaudhuri said, “For Nigeria, we have been supporting a wide range of programmes,ranging from school projects, economic empowerment and energy for rural areas.
“We have a wide range of support, specifically, we discussed with the minister beyond financing, what we could do with ideas and experiences from other countries.
“In its critical role of budget and economic planning, budget function, we discussed with the minister how to ensure that public funds are spent as effective and efficiently for the common good of Nigerian people.
“We are not just financing, we hope we can provide ideas and some experience from other countries.
“The World Bank operate in about 120 countries of the world. So, part of our role is to share experiences. For instance, what works in Indonesia could work in Nigeria. That is what we hope to do here.
“Specifically, we spoke about Nigeria’s Cash Program, ongoing programs implemented by the States, which the ministry is doing the coordination, not just for federal government but for sub-nationals”.
Responding, the minister thanked the World Bank for all the support it has been providing to the ministry within the wider government circle.
The minister explained that the engagement between the ministry and the World Bank is mainly in terms of blended development assistance projects with components of loans and grants from Donors especially, the European Union .
Other areas of corporation, include technical assistance extended to the ministry by the World Bank.
Also included in the areas of assistance are: executed projects, social development, economic development, pipeline initiatives, microeconomic .analysis, international cooperation and funding supoort.
“They assured us of more support and appreciated the bold initiatives and measures that have been taken by Bola Tinubu’s administration to reposition the Nigerian economy.
“The social intervention and palliatives that are being rolled out to ensure that even though, the reforms have caused hardship, the hardships can be assuaged by such social interventions.
“The initiatives are being discussed with both the coordinating minister and the minister and the president,” he said.
Recall that the President of World Bank visited president Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently and there was request for more support, which is being looked considered.
