The African Development Bank’s (AfDB) portfolio in Nigeria currently stands at $5 billion, cutting across 63 operations in both the public and private sectors covering many fields.
Also, with the exit of 15 operations and entry of six since the 2019 County Portfolio Performance Review (CPPR) workshop, the Bank’s portfolio in Nigeria has increased by $198.6 million.
This was disclosed Thursday in Abuja by Mr Lamin Barrow, Director-General, Nigeria Country Department at the 2022 CPPR workshop.
He said in 2020, a $288.5 million General Budget Support operation was approved under the Covid-19 Crisis Response Facility, while $544 million in loan financing were approved for five operations in 2021.
“The Bank has leveraged its resources by mobilising co-financing from other development partners to the tune of $1 billion,” Mr Barrow informed.
The Director-General, Nigeria Country Department expressed appreciation to other development partners like the Islamic Development Bank, International Fund for Agriculture Development, Française de Dèveloppment, and Africa Growing Together Fund for their excellent partnership in co-developing, and co-financing two flagship programmes – “Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, and the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) Programme.”
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He warned that delayed implementation of projects imposes a high burden to the economy, and ultimately undermine the objectives to deliver development outcomes, and urged participants to strengthen their accountability mechanisms backed by robust tracking tools to monitor implementation progress.
Mr Barrow noted that the CPPR by its nature is an interactive process that is underpinned by the principles of partnership and mutual accountability between the Bank, the Borrower and other co-financing partners, and urged participants, at the end of the discussion to prepare a Country Portfolio Improvement Plan (CPIP) with clear actions to guide the joint efforts for overcoming the challenges faced and accelerate the implementation of the projects in the Nigeria portfolio.
Hajia Aisha Omar, Director, International Economic Relations Department, Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning said the CPPR is critical to the development of Nigeria as it helps to ascertain if value for money was achieved while projects were implemented.
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AfDB’s current portfolio in Nigeria hits $5bn, says Barrow
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