The World Bank Country Director for
Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, said
this at the bank's Country Programme
Portfolio Review in Enugu on Tuesday. She said that the bank's ongoing
commitment to Nigeria stood at $5.34bn.
According to the World Bank boss, the
number of Nigerians living in destitution
makes up 8.33 per cent of the total number
of people living in destitution all over the world, which the bank plans to reduce
drastically by 2030. She said, "1.2 billion people live in
destitution out of which 100 million are
Nigerians. Inequality is rising in many
developing nations. "For this reason, the World Bank's corporate
perspective has shifted more strategically
in the past year. The World Bank wants to
galvanise international and national
support around two goals: to end extreme
poverty in a generation and to push for greater equality. "To end extreme poverty, the World Bank
Group's goal is to decrease the percentage of
people living on less than $1.25 a day from 20
per cent today to three per cent by 2030. "The goal is to promote income growth of the
bottom 40 per cent of the population in each
country. In Nigeria, 63 per cent of the
population live on less than $1.25 a day." Marie-Nelly said although the World Bank
was the largest overseas development
agency that provided assistance to Nigeria,
the contribution of the organisation to the
country was very small compared to the
budgets of the states and the Federal Government. She said if the World Bank's small assistance
could produce so much result because of
effective implementation and monitoring,
the revenues accruable to the country
could do much more if they were similarly
utilised. Giving a more graphic picture of the World
Bank's credit to Nigeria in relation to
revenues accruing to the nation, Marie-
Nelly said while the bank's total
commitment to Nigeria amounted to
$4.67bn by 2012, the budget of the states and Federal Government amounted to
$64.05bn in the same year. She said the World Bank's portfolio
amounted to $5.34bn as of June 2013, while
the budget of the Federal Government alone
for 2013 amounted to $31.17bn. She said the bank had shifted from being
Federal Government centric to a more
balanced federal and state level support. She said the annual Country Programme
Portfolio Review, which the bank
undertakes with various governments, was
necessary to assess the progress in achieving
the development objectives as well as the
quality of implementation of the projects.
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