World Bank Commends Nigeria's Economic Reforms, Offers $15bn Support
The World Bank announces $15 billion in support for Nigeria's economic reforms.
Nigeria's economic development gets a boost with $15bn funding and technical advice from the World Bank, recognizing the country's progress in implementing key reforms.
The World Bank has said that it will provide Nigeria more than $15 billion in funding and technical advice in order to boost the country's economic development. The Bank also commended the administration for its audacious reform programs.
“As Nigeria pushes forward to attain economic prosperity, the country will need sustained efforts to deliver key public goods for its citizens. The World Bank is supporting Nigeria to achieve this with both technical advisory and financing, which stands at over US$15 billion in sectors that include reliable power and clean energy, girls' education and women's economic empowerment, climate adaptation and resilience, water and sanitation, and governance reforms.” it said.
This was said on its website on Friday in a feature story titled "Turning the Corner: Nigeria's Ongoing Path of Economic Reforms".
According to the World Bank, Nigeria has implemented significant and long-overdue reforms to stabilize the economy and put the nation on a growth path.
The verified foreign exchange backlog has been cleared, several official exchange rates have been unified to create a market-determined rate, and monetary policy has been tightened, which has reduced the difference between the official and parallel markets.
“As a result of the reforms, the supply of foreign exchange has improved, which is good for businesses, consumers, and economic growth. The previous, large gap between the official and parallel market exchange rates has also been eliminated, improving transparency and putting a stop to corrupt practices and ‘round tripping,”' the Bank stated in the article.
“The government also sharply adjusted gasoline prices to begin to phase out the gasoline subsidy, which had cost the country over 8.6 trillion naira (US$22.2 billion) from 2019 to 2022 with empirical evidence showing it did not benefit the poor but rather benefitted relatively better off consumers and resulted in large-scale black market and out- smuggling,”
According to the research, Nigeria is making great strides toward comprehensive macro-fiscal reforms that would eventually improve the country's residents' quality of life by enabling more fiscal resources to be directed to critical sectors.
"Sustaining these reforms and expanding and scaling up social protection for the poor and vulnerable is critical to putting the economy back on track,” the report stated.
It said, “The future can be bright, and ‘Naija’ (Nigeria) can rise and serve as an example for the region on how macro- fiscal and governance reforms along with continued investments in public goods can accelerate growth and improve the lives of citizens.”
This comes after the foreign lender authorized a $2.25 billion loan to promote Nigeria's budgetary reforms, with an interest rate of one percent.
$1.5 billion will go toward the first initiative, Nigeria Reforms for Economic Stabilization to Enable Transformation, or RESET, Development Policy Financing.
It is suggested that $750 million be allocated for the second initiative, known as the NG Accelerating Resource Mobilization Reforms Programme-for-Results, or ARMOR.
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