W’Bank approves $250m for water supply in Nigeria

The World Bank has approved a credit facility of $250m from the International Development Association to help the Nigerian government to increase access to water supply services and to improve the financial and management viability of existing utilities.

The bank disclosed this in a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.

According to the bank, the funds will target the poor urban population living in state capitals and their surroundings, and will benefit some two million people.

It said that the credit would support the Third National Urban Water Sector Reform Project and respond to the Federal Government’s goal of developing more effective mechanisms for social service delivery, particularly water service, as a means of addressing inequality in income and opportunities.

The funds would help to rehabilitate and build the water delivery infrastructure and institutional systems needed to expand access to water supply services for people in selected cities in Bauchi, Ekiti, and Rivers states, it added.

A portion of the project is performance-based and will include incentives for improving the performance of the water supply institutions in the three states.

According to the statement, the second project component will provide technical and financial assistance to state governments and water utilities in Kano, Gombe, Benue, Jigawa, Ondo, Abia, Bayelsa, Anambra, and Plateau states to help prepare them for large water supply investments that can be financed in the future.

The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, said the Ministry of Water Resources would also benefit from the strengthened capacity to monitor and benchmark the water sector’s performance, and accordingly, increased accountability from the states for their performance.

She said, “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.”