$250m grant for Nigerian youth yet to be accessed –W/Bank

The World Bank said Nigeria has accessed about $50 million from the $300m earmarked by the Bank for youth empowerment and other social works in the country.

Its Nigeria’s Lead Social Protection Specialist, Mr Foluso Okunmadewa, said last Monday in Abuja at the Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) Midterm Review Policy Level meeting.

Okunmadewa said the bank had in 2013, earmarked the fund to support federal and state government efforts to improve the lives of the poor and vulnerable in the society but that of recent, the YESSO programme had been doing badly.

He said, “The support operation is in its fourth year of implementation and currently active in 13 states of the federation, including the North-East and coordinated at the federal level, also with the NDE.

“The operation is expected to close in mid-2020 and the performance today is not impressive. Less than 50 million dollars, which is about 13 per cent of the assistance has been disbursed,” Okunmadewa noted.

To encourage more states to participate in the YESSO programme, the World Bank had cut the ration of the required counterpart funding between states and the Federal Government from 50/50 to 90/10.

The National Coordinator of YESSO, David Adejo, urged the states to take advantage of the reduction in counterpart funding by the World Bank to invest in avenues that would lead to youth employments in their respective states. [NAN]