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Tag: world bank

  • World Bank supports Global Distance Learning with $20m

    World Bank supports Global Distance Learning with $20m

    THE World Bank has supported Nigeria’s Global Distance Learning Institute (GDLI) with $20 million.

    Speaking at the inauguration of the institute in Abuja yesterday, the Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the former President of the World Bank in 2005 had a dream to connect the world through knowledge-sharing.

    While the former World Bank President was still looking for countries to connect, she said she quickly submitted Nigeria as one of the countries because the institute would be supported by World Bank with $20 million.

    According to the minister, about 75 companies went through the selection process and at the end, AfriHub emerged as the best.

    She said the mandate of the institute was to train Nigerian youths and provide them with jobs, which prompted the government to partner the private sector.

    Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala stressed that about 1.8 million youths entered the labour market every year and government had provided jobs for 1.6 million, while about 200,000 youths were yet to be employed and an additional 5.3 million unemployed youths had accumulated over the years.

    The Finance Minister said programmes, such as YOUWIN had created over 27,000 jobs since it was launched and over 90,000 youths had applied for the Graduate Internship Programme.

  • World Bank, IMF, AfDB move to improve Nigeria’s GDP

    World Bank, IMF, AfDB move to improve Nigeria’s GDP

    The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) have begun data validation ahead of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rebasing in May at the World Economic Forum.

    Head of Research, Standard Chartered, Razia Khan, said the rebased data would take Nigeria’s economy from $270 billion to about $400 billion, adding that GDP statistics have not been rebased since 1990.

    Khan said the low weights given to rapidly growing sectors, such as telecoms and financial services in current GDP measures, most likely meant that activity in the sectors was understated.

    She said key positive expectations from the rebasing implies that GDP would be revised substantially higher; the oil sector’s share of GDP is likely to rise from the estimated 14 to15 per cent while Debt-to-GDP ratios, which are already benign, are likely to fall further as a result of the rebasing.

    Khan also said the average per-capita income is likely to be revised higher which she sees as likely to be positive.

    According to her, some rating negatives are also likely to emerge. For instance, survey data suggests that as many as 64 per cent of Nigerians live on a dollar per day. The difference between average and median per-capita income is likely to widen, revealing greater inequality.

    Also, non-oil revenue as a percentage of GDP is likely to fall from an already-low seven per cent to below five per cent, showing how much work remains to be done on revenue mobilisation.

    Khan explained that even with much larger measured GDP, Nigeria will remain dependent on oil, its key commodity export.

    “The level of oil savings measured against GDP is likely to appear even more inadequate, and Nigeria’s current account surplus will be smaller as a percentage of GDP. Important vulnerabilities will remain. Passage of the 2014 budget is still awaited The IMF expects continued robust performance in Nigeria’s non-oil sector, with overall GDP growth of 7.3 per cent in 2014.

    “Our expectations are more subdued. The non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill and uncertainty over future fiscal terms mean that conditions will remain difficult for the oil sector. Delays in the passage of the 2014 budget are an additional source of uncertainty,” she said.

    Khan explained that under Nigerian law, at least 50 per cent of the recurrent budget expenditure allocated in the previous fiscal year can be used for spending in the new year without requiring a new budget to be passed. Also, should last year’s spending levels be maintained, this should be enough to see the country through the first six months of this year.

    Alternatively, if recurrent spending is set at half of 2013 levels, this could theoretically see the country through a whole year.

    “With elections approaching in February 2015, few stand to benefit from a postponement of capital expenditure plans. Officially, the 2014 budget aims to reduce the budget deficit to 1.9 per cent of GDP (from 2.17 per cent in 2013). Our higher estimates reflect our doubts over whether the oil output levels assumed in the budget, of 2.39million barrels per day, can be sustained. Augmentation of revenue, using windfall oil savings from the Excess Crude Account (ECA), is likely to be required. Ahead of an election, there is always a risk of further fiscal deterioration if spending plans are increased,” she said.

    Khan said revenue shocks arising from constrained oil output will cause the mix of recurrent to capital expenditure to fall short of plans in the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) which aims to create more room for investment spending.

    However, this is seen as a temporary departure from MTEF plans, as it is typically easier to cut capital than recurrent expenditure when revenue is pressured. She said efforts to mobilise non-oil revenue in more meaningful quantities in the coming years will be key to Nigeria’s credit strength, and the economy’s ability to reduce its oil dependence.

  • World Bank to assist Nigerian universities on e-learning

    World Bank to assist Nigerian universities on e-learning

    The World Bank has promised to assist Nigerian universities in the area of electronics learning in order to align with global standard of learning.

    A director with the World Bank, Dr. Tunde Adekola, stated this while addressing participants at the just concluded Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Conference held in Lagos.

    Dr Adekola believed that consistent support of the World Bank and other international development partners, including support from the public and organised private sectors would raise the standard of education to align with the global standard on ICT in the world

    He pointed out that the universities are very receptive of the e- learning technology, which was why all the vice-chancellors of the 12 newly established Federal Universities saw the need to attend the ICT conference not minding the inconvenience.

    Participants at the conference drawn from the 12 new federal universities included all the vice-chancellors of the universities, including Professor Oye Ibidapo – Obe, former Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, now the Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Ndufu Alike in Ebonyi State.

    The organisers of the Conference, Certified System Limited, focused on the need to domesticate global standard in e- learning, which include an integrated tertiary education system where everything is connected.

    Mr Emmanuel Ochie, a World Bank ICT consultant and Chief Executive officer, Certified System told newsmen that the objective of the conference was to ensure the realization in each of the Nigerian universities, of a smart university setting.

    During an interactive session, Ochie broke the news of an intervention fund the Central of Nigeria, CBN, has created to support the development of e- learning in Nigeria’s new federal universities and urged the vice – chancellors to take steps to access the fund.

  • World Bank to disburse $159.5m for growth, employment

    World Bank to disburse $159.5m for growth, employment

    The World Bank will disburse 159.5 million dollars on growth and employment project in Nigeria before the end of 2017, a statement said.

    Notice of the disbursement is contained in a World Bank report titled “Fostering Transformational Development in Nigeria”, according to the statement released in Abuja at the weekend.

    The bank said the project was aimed at addressing the gap that prevented key growth centres from expanding and supporting small and medium enterprises to develop new business models.

    “It is also aimed at creating an enabling business environment,” the report said.

    It stated that over 500 enterprises and artisans had benefited from interventions in the meat, leather and construction sectors funded by Department for International Development (DFID).

    The World Bank report noted that key preparatory activities included the development of stakeholders networks, especially in the entertainment and ICT sectors. “Policy development has also been supported,” it added.

  • World Bank’s $80m for Nigerian universities

    The World Bank has approved $80 million grant for Nigeria to fund its 10 Centres of Excellence in universities.

    The Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, announced the approval in Abuja yesterday at a news conference on the meeting of World Bank with African Centres ofExcellence (ACE).

    Okojie also announced that Nigeria won 10 slots of the 18 approved proposals for the establishment of ACEs.

    He said the World Bank-funded ACE project was introduced to build capacity in competitively selected institutions to produce in-demand highly skilled labour and applied research.

    He said it was also to facilitate rapid development within the African sub-region through the strengthening of ACEs by collaborations and partnership in sharing of talents, skilled labour and higher education services.

    “Following the call for proposals on July 15, 2013, the NUC put in place a process to ensure that Nigerian universities win most of the ACEs.

    “This process included workshops, mock evaluations, proposal development support, etc,” he said.

    The executive secretary said seven Nigerian universities were selected from 15 institutions that would benefit from the ACE grant.

    The universities include Redeemers University, Mowe, Ogun, African University of Science and Technology, Abuja, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

  • Nigeria to get $159m for growth project – World Bank

    The World Bank would disburse 159.5 million dollars (about N25.679bn) on growth and employment project in Nigeria before the end of 2017, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

    The notice of the disbursement is contained in a World Bank report titled: “Fostering Transformational Development,” released on Friday in Abuja.

    The bank said the project was aimed at addressing the gap that prevented key growth centres from expanding and supporting small and medium enterprises to develop new business models.

    “It is also aimed at creating an enabling business environment,’’ the report said.

    It stated that over 500 enterprises and artisans have benefited from interventions in the meat, leather and construction sectors funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).

    The World Bank report noted that key preparatory activities included the development of stakeholders’ networks, especially in the entertainment and ICT sectors.

    “Policy development has also been supported,’’ it added.

    It added that the August 2010 “job summit’’ had helped to identify new ways for government to support targeted sectors.

     

  • 11m youths may be jobless by 2024, says World Bank

    11m youths may be jobless by 2024, says World Bank

    HALF of sub-Saharan Africa’s population, now under 25 totalling about 11 million, are expected to join the labour market yearly in the next decade, the World Bank has said.

    The International Bank for Reconstruction and development (IBRD), in a comprehensive regional report on the subject, ‘Youth Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa,’ released at the bank’s headquarters in Washinton, DC yesterday, noted that close to 80 per cent of the workforce will continue to work on small farms and in household businesses in the near future.

    It said while many African economies have registered impressive economic growth in recent years, poverty levels across the region have not fallen as much as expected, and young people looking for better-paying jobs have been at a great disadvantage.

    The report said while the modern wage sector is growing very fast in some countries, the bank said it cannot create enough jobs to meet the youth employment challenge now preoccupying governments in every corner of the continent, adding that this is partly because many African countries rely heavily on oil, gas, and mineral extraction which boosts economic growth, but does little to create new jobs for the region’s fast-growing youth population, or reduce overall rates of poverty.

    World Bank Vice President for Africa, Makhtar Diop, said: “Attracting investment into large enterprises that create wage jobs in the mainstream ‘formal’ economy is critical, but it is only part of the solution to Africa’s youth employment challenge.

    “For the millions of young people who are just surviving in the hidden ‘informal’ sector, they will need greater access to land, skills training, and credit to thrive. This will be a game-changer for small farmers and entrepreneurs who will prosper as African economies grow, in close cooperation with the private sector.”

    The new report showed that manufacturing, services and agriculture are traditionally labour-intensive sectors that can generate productive work for young people. Former Lead Economist at the World Bank, said: ”In addition to promoting investment and competitiveness, the quality of primary education, the right nutrition for young children, and basic healthcare for all are a must to improve the quality of life for Africa’s young people and their future productivity.”

    As working populations age in other parts of the world, young Africans could find their labor and skills increasingly in high demand internationally if their governments pursue policies that improve education and job training for their youth.

    Deon Filmer, Lead Economist at the World Bank and a co-author of the report, Mentioned that, ”governments can approach the youth employment challenge in two important ways—firstly by helping to improve the business environment to spark more private investment, and also by investing more in young people’s education and other skills to create brighter-life prospects for them.”

    Recent evidence also showed that programs that help young people acquire a range of complementary skills are very promising. In Liberia, a program that offered a combination of technical, behavioural skills and business skills to adolescent girls and young women was highly effective in increasing their levels of employment and income.

    The business and professional-behavioral skills training allowed them to raise their monthly incomes by an average of $75, or 115 percent increase.

    An example gathered from the report showed that young people who received cash grants from the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund to pay for their vocational training and assets needed to start a business later, earned 41 per cent more than others who did not receive this support. They earned more because nearly three-quarter of them took the opportunity to pay for training and enter a skilled trade. The program was particularly successful in helping young women to break free of poverty.

    Diop added that making high-quality science and technology education more accessible to young people and shaping higher education courses to fit the skills needed by the modern jobs market was increasingly a high priority for many African countries.

    New development partners, such as China, India, and Brazil are actively working with the World Bank to help develop these science and technology skills for Africa’s youth, the report said.

  • World Bank raises hope for global economies

    Five years after the global financial crisis, the world economy is showing signs of bouncing back this year, pulled along by a recovery in high-income economies, says the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report.

    According to the document obtained from the bank’s website, developing-country growth is also firming.

    It said growth prospects for 2014 are sensitive to the tapering of monetary stimulus in the United States, which began earlier this month, and to the structural shifts taking place in China’s economy.

    The report forecasts growth in developing countries to pick up from 4.8 per cent in 2013 to a slower than previously expected 5.3 per cent this year, 5.5 percent in 2015 and 5.7 percent in 2016.

    “While the pace is about 2.2 percentage points lower than during the boom period of 2003-07, the slower growth is not a cause for concern. Almost all of the difference reflects a cooling off of the unsustainable turbo-charged pre-crisis growth, with very little due to an easing of growth potential in developing countries,” it said.

    Global Gross Domestic Product is projected to grow from 2.4 per cent in 2013 to 3.2 per cent this year, stabilising at 3.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent in 2015 and 2016, respectively, with much of the initial acceleration reflecting a pick-up in high-income economies.

  • ‘We’ll exorcise power demons’

    ‘We’ll exorcise power demons’

    Continued from page 45

     

    and make money will come in.

    So, we are just showing that there is a big boom for the future of solar energy in Nigeria and that rural communities, agrarian communities, local manufacturers, small and medium enterprises in the rural areas, they can all benefit and be fully powered whether or not they are connected to the national grid. We want to open the door to the private sector because they will move faster.

    Is it feasible for Nigerians to have 24 hours uninterrupted power supply?

    Yes. It is possible but it will take time because of our population. It is like university, you design a hostel room for two people and two students will pay the required fees. And they will invite two more students to stay in the same room. The invited two may even invite others to join them in the same room. As a former Vice Chancellor, I know this as a norm. At the end of the day, a room made for two people is occupied by 10 human beings not pigs, not chickens.

    What do you think will happen to the toilet? Will you be able to breathe as you pass through there? The facilities were not designed for that. Our population is huge. Previous administrations did not take the bull by the horns. So there was a cumulative deficiency. The gap is huge. But now, this current administration is doing everything possible, widening the scope, extending the scope in transmission substantially. And now, having handed over to the private sector distribution, we have insisted that they must reduce losses and expand their own facilities.

    Are you satisfied with the funding in the power sector?

    I don’t think anybody will be satisfied with the current funding and the huge challenge is the funding. But again, that is why privatisation took place because the fund is going to come from private people. But with the Transmission Company of Nigeria, the government has now engaged international financing agencies, World Bank, EXIM Bank of China, EXIM Bank of the US, to some extent Africa Development Bank, French Development Bank and even Japan. And then there is a huge fund coming in from the sale of NIPP plants. And so, at the end of the day, we will have a robust national grid that will be ready for the expansion in stages and spots of generation.

    As the generation is done and expanded, the distribution people know that the only way they can make more money is to give electricity to more people so they will begin to now find money to send distribution lines to where it didn’t exist before. And where it is going to take a long time to do, we will meet through our solar and wind and biomass renewable energy system. So, I don’t think any ministry will sit down and say we are satisfied with funding. Oil thieves have done us a huge harm because you cannot fully realise what you have in the budget. The money is just not there.

    Have you been able to deal with the devils you alluded to as plaguing the power sector on your assumption of office?

    Yes, you know the devil comes as human beings. We are fighting them on a daily basis. What do you think of the oil thieves? They are demons in human forms. What do you think of those who vandalise our gas pipelines? They are demons and we are dealing with them. I engaged the services of the National Security Adviser, who engaged the services of the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps and also the Army. And that is the reason that there has been a substantial improvement in the security of our transmission and distribution infrastructure.

    What we have today is whenever you hear of theft and stealing and vandalism it is so much less than what it used to be before. The major problem is the oil and gas pipelines. People actually go to gas pipelines and blow them up, not to get anything but to punish Nigeria. Are they not demons? So I am doing everything to drive them out, using all kinds of legal, military and also prayer, because some of them are so demon-possessed we have to exorcise them. Somebody who will punish himself, punish his mother, punish his father, punish his children and punish the whole country for nothing. Is that not a demon? Is he a real human being? So my brother, there are demons there and I am still dealing with them.

    Is there an enabling law against vandals or are you thinking of sending a bill to the national assembly?

    We have told our policy people to do that. You know, when I was in the university, it is the same problem we had with cultists. There was no enabling law to really deal with them until recently. You catch an armed robber, he will tell you ‘I’m not an armed robber, I’m a cultist.’ You take him to court and deal with him as a cultist and there was nothing that is there to enable you to really punish him. But we worked very hard and started making sure that some states started having laws against cultism. I’m sure you know when I was at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I banished cultism. It is a feat that almost no vice chancellor has been able to do in Nigeria.

    Five years of my stay there, there was not a single cult war and I didn’t lose a student to cultism. Two years before I became vice chancellor at UNN, cultists murdered the Chief Security Officer of the university. A year before I became vice chancellor, cultists murdered the Dean of Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty. Cultists will take over the university and literarily announce that they are now in charge, confiscate all the walkie-talkies of all the people there. That was why that place was called National War College Number 2 before I came there. Five years, it didn’t happen.

    And again for five years, I was able to keep the university away and they didn’t get involved in any ASUU strike. We need that law, we need to engage all the parties, executives, legislative, judiciary to work together to make sure some things don’t continue to happen. I believe that vandalism, by the time we get the legal framework completed, people should be punished. In fact, they can be punished under Miscellaneous Act because this is a sabotage of the entire national economy. And the people who do this should be made to pay dearly for it.

    Do you have time for relaxation?

    I have a wonderful wife and wonderful family. So whenever work allows me, we share a lot of time together and we pray a lot, we gist a lot and we take our walk together where we can, especially when kidnappers are not there. We share a lot of time together in the things of the Lord. We do a lot of church work. I am an evangelist by the way and I am an archdeacon in the Anglican Church.

    Do you do any sporting activities?

    I used to but right now I haven’t found the time. When I was much younger, I played soccer, I played cricket. And I think Golf is for big men.

  • World Bank, WTO joint database coming

    The World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have agreed to jointly develop and maintain a database on trade in services for Nigeria and more than 100 other countries globally.

    A statement from the global lender said the joint database covers various sectors such as financial, transportation, tourism, retail, telecommunications, and business services, including law and accounting.

    It said the database is an area that is becoming increasingly important and yet for which little information is publicly available.

    It said the data will be presented in four modules covering: members’ commitments under the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); commitments on trade in services in regional trade agreements; members’ applied measures affecting trade in services; and services statistics.

    The first version of the database has just been launched, as part of the WTO’s Integrated Trade Intelligence Portal (I-TIP) Services portal.

    Policy makers, researchers, trade negotiators, and the general public can access the database for free. Policy transparency is a public good and a shared objective of both institutions. The World Bank makes trade data publicly available under the Open Data Initiative, as does the WTO with the I-TIP.

    Transparency is particularly important in the dynamic area of trade in services because the regulatory framework is complex and little information is publicly available. Cross-border trade in services makes up one-fifth of all world trade, even without considering international transactions through foreign affiliates and the temporary movement of people. This WTO-World Bank arrangement exploits synergies between both institutions.

    “Among other things, the joint database combines WTO data, including those on legal commitments trade policy reviews (TPRs) or trade monitoring reports with World Bank data on applied policies from the Services Trade Restrictions Database, which went public last year. Both institutions will work hard to make sure the joint database stays up to date and expands to cover more sectors and countries,” it said.