By Ken Chiwendu
The funds will focus on enhancing services for women, children, and adolescents, while also addressing climate challenges such as floods and drought.
The World Bank has approved a total of $1.57 billion new loans for Nigeria to improve healthcare, education, and climate issues such as floods and droughts.
The new funds which was approved on September 26,2024,include $500m for addressing governance issues that constrains the delivery of education and health ( Hope- GOV), $570m for the Primary Healthcare Provision Strengthening Program ( Hope – PHC) and $500m for the Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria Project ( SPIN).
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The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria,Dr Ndiame Diop made this known in a statement on Monday.
” The World Bank has today approved three operations for a total of $1.57bn to support the Government of Nigeria in strengthening human capital through better health for women, children, and adolescents and building resilience to the effects of climate change such as floods and droughts through improving dam safety and irrigation”
“The HOPE-GOV and HOPE-PHC programmes combined will support the Government of Nigeria to improve service delivery in the basic education and primary healthcare sectors which are critical towards improving Nigeria’s human capital outcomes.
“The SPIN project will support improvement of dams’ safety and management of water resources for hydropower and irrigation in selected areas of Nigeria.”
Diop said” the SPIN program is timely and will protect Nigerians from floods and droughts in the areas where it will be implemented, while enabling an increase in hydropower generation. The direct positive impact of this project on people and livelihoods is enormous, The World Bank is pleased to work with the government and other stakeholders to deliver this program,”
He added “the new financing for human capital and primary healthcare will help to address the complex difficulties faced by Nigerians especially women and girls around access and quality of services, but also the governance arrangements that explain these differences.”
The project is financed by a concessional $500m International Development Association (IDA) credit and an additional $70m in grant financing from the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents (GFF).
The GFF support includes $11m from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and $12.5m from the Children’s Investment Foundation Fund (CIFF) through joint financing with the GFF to help close the financing gap for primary and community healthcare and maternal newborn care at hospital-level, while also supporting government efforts to ensure sustainable financing for family planning commodities.
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