$250m Provided For Water Supply In Nigeria By World Bank

Credit facility of $250m has been approved by World Bank to help the government of Nigeria in water supplying services and in improving the financial and management viability of existing water unitilities. The statement indicating the credit was released this Monday, April 21st in Abuja to the correspondent of Punch. As it was stated by the bank, the funds are aimed to help around 2 million poor urban people living in capitals of states and suburbs. The credit is to support the Third National Urban Water Sector Reform Project and be a part of goal of Federal Government aimed at developing more efficient mechanisms of water service to address inequality in income and opportunities among people of Nigeria. Water delivery infrastructure and institutional systems to expand access to water supply services in Bauchi, Rivers, Ekiti states will be rehabilitated and built with the help of these funds. The project will include incentives for improved performance of the water supply institutions in the above mentioned states. The statement also revealed facts on the second part of the project – technical and financial help to the state governments and water institutions in Gombe, Benue, Jigawa, Ondo, Kano, Bayelsa, Abia, Anambra, Plateau states as a first part of investments planned in future. Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, claims that the Ministry of Water Resources in Nigeria will also benefit from increased potential to monitor and benchmark the performance of water sector and also from the increased accountability from the states involved in the program for their performance. “Today’s project builds on past experience, which has shown that building water infrastructure without strengthening the capacity of the institutions responsible for managing water supply to the targeted areas does not lead to sustainable results,” she said