Daily Champion (Lagos)
Achilleus-Chud Uchegbu
3 November 2009
Efforts by Nigeria to achieve its vision of being among top 20 economies of the world by year 2020 yesterday received a boost from the World Bank which said the country's progress has been steady but slow.
Speaking at the Dissemination of Nigeria Country Partnership Strategy Document for year 2010-2013 held in Abuja, Nigeria country program manager at World Bank, Poonam Gupta, said comparing Nigeria with other advanced democracies was misplaced as according to her, "Nigeria is still a young democracy."
Gupta said: "Nigeria is taking the right steps and it is making slow but steady progress," advising however that "if you eliminate corruption, things will be better."
Given this, the World Bank, she said, expects growth in private investments in selected industrial and agribusiness clusters to rise by between 10 percent and 30 percent by the year 2013 just as it looks forward to seeing individuals with access to financial services to increase from the current 15 percent to 16.5 percent in 2013.
She encouraged Nigerians to be optimistic about their country and also paint it in positive light as its democracy is still young and needs time to mature.
"You should not be pessimistic about your country," she urged Nigerians noting that Nigeria occupies a pride of place at the World Bank. "I sit at the World Bank in New York and I see the indices. The attention that Nigeria gets at the World Bank in Washington is unparalleled.
"You must recognize that Nigeria is a very important player in the world, a very important country to the World Bank," she said. Gupta further urged Nigerians to realise that institutions that make democracy work takes time to build.
"Nigeria is a young democracy. You cannot compare it with the west with years of experience in democracy. What you have is a young democracy with young institutions which need time to build. The institutions that make democracy work take time to build," she stated.
Meanwhile, speaking on the 2010-2013 partnership strategy for Nigeria, Gupta said the World Bank has approved a $4.5 billion total lending envelop for the country for the period.
She said the amount will depend on International Development association (IDA) availability, Nigeria's country performance relative to the performance of other IDA borrowers, financing terms and the number of IDA eligible countries.
Gupta said World Bank's strategic intervention during the 2010-2013 period will be anchored on three pillars including sustaining non-oil growth, improving human development and improving governance.
She said in the areas of non-oil sector growth, the World Bank will aim to achieve domestic-led growth so as to "allow Nigerian firms be able to increase productivity and efficiency so that in the longer term they would be able to compete in regional and international markets and to diversify exports away from oil."
Gupta also said the intervention will seek to improve agricultural productivity and address constraints to growth of private enterprises, power, transport, investment climate, skills gap and trade policies.
She said in the human development area, the World Bank will target growths in education with strategic focus in the northern region "where indicators are weak, particularly on girl education."
She further stated: "In health, support will move towards programmatic approach, with focus on maternal and child health and reducing cost of health services" while more emphasis will be laid on the provision of basic social services and empowerment of the poor, especially in rural areas.
Based on these indices, the World Bank expects that additional 1000 km of selected unity roads will be rehabilitated by 2013 while additional 600kms of selected rural roads will be rehabilitated by 2013 with increase in the average bus speed raising to 20 km per hour on BRT corridors by the same year.
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