The World Bank Group is finalizing arrangements to lend the Nigerian government another loan worth $1.7 billion.
According to documents on the Federal Government’s request, the loan is expected to be approved on September 26, 2024, to finance three major development projects aimed at enhancing Nigeria’s economic stability and resource mobilisation capabilities.
The first project is the Nigeria Primary Healthcare Provision Strengthening Programme, which is set to receive $500 million while the second is the Nigeria Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity Governance, for which $500 million had been proposed for its funding. The third, the Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria Project, will receive the highest funding of $700 million.
The documents showed stated that these projects had reached the negotiation stage and are expected to be approved by the World Bank’s board at its meeting on September 26, 2024
The negotiation stage, the final phase of the loan process, implies that the request has successfully cleared the appraisal stage between Nigeria, represented by the Minister of Finance, and the World Bank.
It is believed that if approved, Nigeria would have secured a total of $3.95 billion in loans from the Washington D.C-based development finance institution this year alone and a cumulative $6.65 billion under the present President Bola Tinubu-led administration.
The proposed loans would be used funding crucial sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and infrastructure as the country’s sustainable development and economic stability.
The Nigeria Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity, which will receive $500 million from the loan focuses on enhancing human capital by improving education, health, and social protection services.
According to the draft copy of the Environment and Social Systems Assessment prepared by the bank, the project is to improve quality and utilisation of essential health care services and health system resilience in Nigeria.
The document reads in part: “The proposed HOPE-Health provides a Sector-Wide Approach platform, leveraging significant additional resources to support a critical agenda.
“By aligning donor financing with the government’s resources, the proposed operation will foster convergence around a common set of results that are reflective of Nigeria’s disease burden.
“The Programme Development Objective is to improve quality and utilisation of essential healthcare services and health system resilience in Nigeria. Four PDO-level indicators align with the PDO emphasis on utilization, and quality of essential health care services.
“Number of women and children who receive tracer essential health services by community health workers. The number of PHC facilities achieving service readiness assessment criteria. The proportion of deliveries with skilled birth attendants present and the number of empaneled EDGE level 1 CEmONC facilities certified”, it added
Also, the bank stated that the loan request for the Nigeria’s Primary Healthcare Provision Strengthening Programme is to fortify Nigeria’s primary healthcare system by enhancing healthcare infrastructure, training healthcare professionals, and improving service delivery. This project will be implemented by the Ministry of Health.
The third project, Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria Project, which will be supervised and implemented by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, will focus on sustainable power generation and irrigation, both of which are essential for agricultural and industrial development.
The two loan requests, including the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project – Scale Up project will receive $500m by December 16, 2024, and the Solutions for the Internally Displaced and Host Communities Project has been slated for an approval date of April 8, 2025.
It would be recalled that on June 13 this year, the World Bank announced the approval of two loan projects aimed at bolstering Nigeria’s economic stability and supporting its vulnerable populations.
A statement from the bank on the loan requests indicated that the combined package totaling $2.25 billion, comprised the $1.5 billion for Nigeria Reforms for Economic Stabilization to Enable Transformation Development Policy Financing Program and the $750 million for the Nigeria Accelerating Resource Mobilization Reforms Program-for-Results.
Already, the Federal Government has received $751.88 million of the $1.5bn under the Nigeria Reforms for Economic Stabilisation to Enable Transformation.
So far, the Nigerian government had secured a total of $4.95 billion in loans from the World Bank under the present administration amid concerns being raised by analysts over the country’s rising external debt servicing costs.
Specifically, in the past 15 months of the President Tinubu’s administration, not less than six loan projects had been approved by the World Bank for Nigeria, including $750 million for Power sector, $500 million for Women Empowerment programmes, $700 million for girl’s education, $750 million for Renewable Energy projects, $1.5 billion for Economic Stabilization reforms; and $750 million for Resource Mobilization reforms.
Available data on Nigeria’s external debt stock profile from the Debt Management Office showed that Nigeria owed the World Bank a total of $15.59 billion as of March 31, 2024.
