The World Bank said it has approved a $750 million credit line for Nigeria to help the country’s 36 states push through reforms to attract investment and create jobs.
The World Bank said Nigeria had made progress in improving the ease of doing business but the country’s ability to attract domestic and foreign investment remained low compared with others.
“Private sector investments remain the major vehicle to create more jobs, increase revenues to the states and improve social and economic outcomes for citizens,” the World Bank’s country director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said in a statement late on Thursday.
The $750 million credit would improve land administration, telecommunications infrastructure, public-private partnerships, investment promotion and the business regulatory environment, the World Bank said.
The bank explained that the Program-for-Results supports the most critical state-level business enabling reforms of the government’s SABER program.
The program is open to all states in Nigeria and FCT, given their ability to take concrete steps towards addressing major business-enabling environment challenges around land administration, regulatory framework for private investment in fiber optic infrastructure, public-private partnerships (PPP) and investment promotion frameworks and services, and business enabling regulatory environment, the World Bank added.
