The World Bank has promised to step up financial support for Nigeria in priority needs of the nation’s economy, just as it lauded the economic reforms under the Bola Tinubu administration.
World Bank’s Managing Director of Operations, Anna Bjerde, made this known on Thursday evening after paying a courtesy visit to President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja.
Bjerde, who spoke to newsmen after her meeting with President Tinubu, also said the Bank would continue to support the reforms of the Tinubu administration through its supportive instruments.
According to her: “The outcome is that the World Bank will continue to support the reforms of the President Tinubu’s administration through the supportive instrument that we have and we will be stepping up our financial support to Nigeria in line with all the different initiatives that are being taken and all the needs that the economy has”.
She expressed optimism that the Bank would grow its programme currently running with the Nigerian government.
“So while we already have large programme, from this visit we already see that the programme will grow from there. I have been pleased with the discussions we had over the last meeting with the PBAT,” Bjerde added.
Also speaking to reporters, Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, highlighted the outcomes of the two-day meeting of Western and Central Africa Ministers of Finance, co-hosted by Nigeria and the World Bank.
Edun added that issues of development and concessional financing for the West and Central Africa were top on the agenda of the summit.
“We have a mini summit and issues of development and increasing the level of concessional financing to west and Central Africa were on the agenda and we reported to the President that we had a robust discussion”.
The Minister also said Nigeria advocated for increase resources towards the improvement of electricity and creating more access to social safety net.
He said the target is to provide better support for Nigeria in digitisation and technological development of Nigeria’s economy.
“Emphasises were laid on increasing resources to Nigeria and to west and Central Africa and also to improve electricity access ,growing the social safety net providing greater support for digitisation and technological development of our economies and to assist in our search for solutions to the issue of development and leading more people out of poverty”, Edun said.
Deji Elumoye in Abuja