Nigeria to get more loans from World Bank

Nigeria will soon be eligible for more funds from the World Bank, the bank’s Country Director for Nigeria, Ms. Marie-Francois Marie-Nelly, has said.

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja on Monday, Marie-Nelly said the bank had resolved to give Nigeria a blend status in its 2014-2017 Country Partnership Strategy document, which would be released later in the year.

Currently, Nigeria is only eligible to borrow from the bank’s International Development Association lending window. But with improved rating, the country will be able to borrow from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s lending window.

On its website, the World Bank said the IDA was the part that helped the world’s poorest countries, while the IBRD gave loans on commercial basis to countries with the capacity for repayment.

Marie-Nelly said poverty rate per capita in Nigeria had now dipped to 62.6 per cent from 64.2 per cent.

Citing the National Bureau of Statistics figures between 2003 and 2009, the World Bank director said the urban poverty within the same period had equally reduced to 51.2 per cent from 52.2 per cent, whereas rural poverty dropped to 69 per cent from 73.4 per cent.

Similarly, in adult equivalent terms, poverty rate has gone down to 46.1 per cent from 48.3 per cent and urban poverty has come down to 34.3 per cent from 36.8 per cent, while rural poverty dipped to 52.9 per cent from 57.4 per cent within the period under review.