By Abiola Olawale
The Federal Government of Nigeria is set to receive a new loan from the World Bank, totalling $1.5 billion.
It was gathered that the apex bank approved Nigeria’s loan request and included the country’s name on its project list.
The $1.5 billion is set to be approved on September 26 and it is expected to be distributed through three major development projects aimed at improving Nigeria’s economic stability and resource mobilisation capacity.
According to a breakdown of a report from the World Bank, the loan will be targeted at crucial sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, and infrastructure.
The bank explained that it has approved $500 million for the first project, which is tagged ‘Nigeria: Primary Healthcare Provision Strengthening Programme’.
Another $500 million will be approved for the ‘Nigeria Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity (HOPE) – Governance’ project, which has a project cost of $700 million.
The third project, ‘Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria,’ will also receive $500 million, but has a project cost of $10.75 billion.
It was gathered also that two loan requests, one on the ‘Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project – Scale Up,’ will receive $500 million by December 16, and the other on ‘Solutions for the Internally Displaced and Host Communities Project,’ slated for an approval date of April 8, 2025, will receive N300 million.
Nigeria’s external debt to the international lender keeps growing.
It would be recalled that Nigeria recently emerged as the third largest debtor to the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA).
A financial statement published by the World Bank revealed that Nigeria is the largest debtor to IDA as of June 30, 2024.
A breakdown of the statement revealed that Nigeria’s debt portfolio rose by 14.4%, from $14.3 billion recorded at the end of 2023 to $16.5 billion as of June 30, 2024.
