Participants of Medium
Term Review (MTR), on Friday, concurred with the findings that the African Development Bank (AfDB), was highly involved in the development of the real sector of the Nigerian economy.
This is contained in a statement released in Lagos by the African Development Bank (AfDB).
According to the statement, a workshop to validate the findings of a MTR of Nigeria’s Country Strategy Paper (CSP) was conducted on April 12.
It said the attendee’s acknowledged the importance of aligning the CSP to new development priorities, such as social protection programmes, aimed at addressing increased fragility and vulnerability in the North East region.
A Lead Economist in AfDB, Nigeria, Ms Barbara Barungi, who presented the review findings, emphasised that the results were arrived at after wide consultation.
It noted that the MTR took stock of the performance of the strategy, and sought to establish a pipeline of new projects for the remaining period of the strategy.
“The Bank will have to find a way to respond to the social sector priorities of the new government, while ensuring alignment with the Bank’s top five priorities (High 5s),” it quoted her as saying.
Barungi said the workshop deliberated on the importance of fine-tuning the strategy to address emerging challenges and issues of fragility and vulnerability, adding that it would ensure bank programmes contributed to building resilience.
She added that project implementation issues were also discussed at length, and found challenges in project implementation due to signature delays.
In addition to that, the statement revealed that there was also a protracted process of setting up project management teams.
The statement said that stakeholders highlighted the need for Federal Government to address bottlenecks and ensure project implementation.
It called on AfDB to adopt more flexible and faster procedures in addition to sensitisation on its agreements, rules and regulations.
Development partners were urged to improve donor coordination and harmonisation, through co-financing arrangements and streamlining of procurement processes.
The workshop brought together representatives from various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), development partners, and AfDB Project Implementation Units (PIUs).
Ousmane Dore, The AfDB’s Country Director, for Nigeria, underscored the importance of deepening policy dialogue, so as to enable the Bank to improve the quality of its portfolio.
The Bank’s current portfolio in Nigeria comprises 46 projects, valued at USD 3.9 billion.