About 100 million Nigerians live in
destitution, the World Bank has said.
The World Bank Country Director for
Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, said
this at the bank’s Country Programme
Portfolio Review in Enugu on Tuesday.
She said that the bank’s ongoing commitment
to Nigeria stood at $5.34bn. According to the
World Bank boss, the number of Nigerians
living in destitution makes up 8.33 per cent of
the total number of people living in
destitution all over the world, which the bank
plans to reduce drastically by 2030.
She said, “1.2 billion people live in destitution
out of which 100 million are Nigerians.
Inequality is rising in many developing nations.
“For this reason, the World Bank’s corporate
perspective has shifted more strategically in
the past year. The World Bank wants to
galvanise international and national support
around two goals: to end extreme poverty in a
generation and to push for greater equality.
“To end extreme poverty, the World Bank
Group’s goal is to decrease the percentage of
people living on less than $1.25 a day from 20
per cent today to three per cent by 2030.
“The goal is to promote income growth of the
bottom 40 per cent of the population in each
country. In Nigeria, 63 per cent of the
population live on less than $1.25 a day.”
Marie-Nelly said although the World Bank was
the largest overseas development agency that
provided assistance to Nigeria, the
contribution of the organisation to the
country was very small compared to the
budgets of the states and the Federal
Government.
She said if the World Bank’s small assistance
could produce so much result because of
effective implementation and monitoring, the
revenues accruable to the country could do
much more if they were similarly utilised.
Giving a more graphic picture of the World
Bank’s credit to Nigeria in relation to
revenues accruing to the nation, Marie-Nelly
said while the bank’s total commitment to
Nigeria amounted to $4.67bn by 2012, the
budget of the states and Federal Government
amounted to $64.05bn in the same year.
She said the World Bank’s portfolio amounted
to $5.34bn as of June 2013, while the budget
of the Federal Government alone for 2013
amounted to $31.17bn.
She said the bank had shifted from being
Federal Government centric to a more
balanced federal and state level support.
She said the annual Country Programme
Portfolio Review, which the bank undertakes
with various governments, was necessary to
assess the progress in achieving the
development objectives as well as the quality
of implementation of the projects.