Arts and Life
83 communities benefit from World Bank Intervention in Nasarawa ***As state ranks first in projects execution
By David Odama
World Bank has carried out interventions in over 83 communities in the areas of water, education, health and road projects.
Under the intervention programme in Nasarawa state.
State Coordinators of NG Cares, pro-poor programme in Nasrawa State, Umar Ibrahim Ayero said over N13billion has been expended in the intervention Programmes in Nasarawa state.
He disclosed that NG care carried out the reconstruction of a school project abandoned since 1975 as it’s set target to bring education to the rural communities where the facilities were lacking adding that the focus and dedication earned the State a national top spot in the distribution of the fund for key projects in Nasarawa state.
According to the NG Care State Coordinator, Nasarawa State got ten percent, amounting to over 13 billon naira of the grant distributed to all the States of the federation in the World Bank assisted programme.
“Nasarawa State emerge first because of the result we have achieved, first in the country and also first in the North Central region.
We came first because what we did for the rural economy in this seven point programme is more than that of every state. So, normally, this world bank programme we are running a P for R financing mechanism”.
“There are independent verifiers that went to every state to look at what you have done and then quantify your volume of achievement based on the amount that is given to you or allocated to each result that you’ve earned. After that exercise, Nasarawa State came first. And the esult was converted to naira which amounted to 13.6billion naira”.
He said the feat and award earned by the State from the Federal government through the Ministry of Budget and Planning also earned the third assessment undertaken out of the four assessments associated with the programme.
“I was optimistic that the State will still perform well because of the enormous work put into achieving the set objectives”,
Umar noted that the effort put into the third assessment supersedes that of the second which fetched the state a plum sum as the best in the Federation.
The NG Cares boss said testimonies from users of rural roads has showed that the construction of such access roads has been most impactful of all the programme, even though all of them are proportionate of great impact on the end-users.
“We have impacted on the vulnerable members of the society through financial start- off adding that the World bank provides the funding, for the projects while the state government owned the projects by agreement with the global bank with the Federal government.
The state, he said takes care of the implementation of the programme when ever achievements are recorded are credited to the state government and then the World Bank for the provision of funds for the execution of the projects through the Community-Driven Development approach.
