The European Union (EU) under the World Bank’s Trust Fund Administration arrangement has provided a grant of $78.4 million as additional financing for the State Employment and Expenditure for Results (SEEFOR) project.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo-Udoma disclosed this while officially signing the grant agreement between the World Bank and Federal Government in Abuja on Thursday.
Udo-Udoma said that the project was an interventionist initiative aimed at enhancing opportunities for employment generation and access to socio-economic services.
He said that the project was also aimed at improving the Public Expenditure Management (PFM) systems in the SEEFOR participating states of Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers.
“ The additional funds will complement the World Bank credit in the sum of 200 million dollars initially provided for project.
“The funds will be utilised for implementing projects and programmes that would enhance the number people with access to social economic services in target communities.
“We believe that it will lead to improved quality of skills acquired by graduates of the Technical and Vocation Training College, and in the number of courses achieving national accreditation.
“It will also improve the public financial management reforms in the SEEFOR project participating states,’’ the minister said.
In his remarks, Mr Juan Casla, Head of Section, Economic Cooperation and Energy, EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS said the project would promote youth employment.
Casla said that the project would help access to socio-economic services and to strengthen public financial management system in the benefiting states.
“This is not an isolated intervention for us: as you are aware, the EU under the Support to State and Local Government Reforms Programme (SLOGOR) is also providing similar support in six additional states.
“The SLOGOR project is also implemented by the World Bank with financing of 60 million euros (about N13.4 billion).
“ This gives a measure of the emphasis that EU places in supporting the improvement of the public sector governance in this country,’’ he said.
Also speaking, Mr Rachid Benmessaoud, Country Director of Nigeria and Coordinating Director for West Africa Regional Integration Programme said that the signing represented less than 10 per cent of the project.
According to him, 90 per cent of the job is yet to the done, which is the implementation.
“This additional financing is coming at the right time to build on the first period of the project and scale them up so if we want to review the result that has been achieved.
“It has been able to provide employment opportunities for 7, 765 youths in the states, 28 technical and vocation education training institutions and 29 courses have been accredited,’’ he said.
EU provides additional $78.4m to support SEEFOR project to promote youth employment
