The World Bank has commenced consultations expected lead to sustainable and meaningful intervention projects and programmes to help sustain and revitalise the Nigerian economy.
Rachid Benmassaoud, the World Bank country director for Nigeria, disclosed this during a courtesy call on Ogbonnaya Onu, the minister of Science and Technology in his office in Abuja on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has launched a rapid recovery and peace building assessment, targeted at internally displaced persons in the states and in the community, with an analysis on the effect they might present on both hardware and software of the economy.
Rachid said the need for assessment came to mind during an interactive session with some Nigerians working for the World Bank in Washington, during which unemployment and corruption were identified as the country’s critical challenges.
“We have just launched this assessment today (yesterday) and it will take about a couple of months to have better ideas on areas where we should take our projects, from the government as well as from the World Bank and other development authoritative partners,” said Rachid.
Rachid added that the bank is working on the power sector, agriculture and solid minerals to
enable Nigeria shift from being a mono-product economy to a multi-product one.
“We would work with the government and the key members to know what we would do in order to respond to the vision of his excellency”, said Rachid.
“We would also assists the government in the areas of education, health, nutrition and in recent time, we are embarking on social safety, under the leadership of the vice president,” he added.
He observed that their engagement in a country is governed by the county’s partnership strategy policy, which is the strategy that the bank agrees with the
government on priority areas of needed development assistance.
In his welcome address, Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of Science and Technology said the key areas of interest of the World Bank are those that will bring happiness to Nigerians, while repositioning the country’s economy for the best.
“Our responsibility is to make sure that natural resources of our nation are effectively and efficiently harnessed to the benefit of all Nigerians and this will be very helpful in diversifying our economy.
“We have refocused the ministry to tend towards import substitution to enable our local industries grow to allow for job and wealth creation, to enable the lifting of many Nigerians out of poverty.”
Oyin Aminu
