World Bank’s $2.1bn fund to rebuild the North East

In a significant effort aimed at contributing to rebuilding areas of the North East destroyed by Boko Haram in the six years that the sect’s vicious insurgency has lasted, the World Bank has announced a $2.1 billion package to help the economy of that region of Nigeria back on its feet and running again. Bank […]

In a significant effort aimed at contributing to rebuilding areas of the North East destroyed by Boko Haram in the six years that the sect’s vicious insurgency has lasted, the World Bank has announced a $2.1 billion package to help the economy of that region of Nigeria back on its feet and running again.
Bank officials said the money would be spent in rebuilding the badly devastated states in the North East, through its International Development Agency (IDA) which offers low-interest rate loans to governments.
According to them, the first 10 years would be interest-free and the interest for the next 30 years will be lower than the prevailing capital market rate.
Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, where thousands have been killed and over a million have been displaced from their homes by the Boko Haram insurgents, are considered the worst-affected states.
The plan was unfolded by the Bank’s senior officials during President Muhammadu  Buhari’s official visit to the United States last week, during a session at which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organisation (WHO) were also in attendance, according to one of Buhari’s spokespersons, Mr Femi Adesina.
Adesina said the president explained that apart from rebuilding the region in terms of infrastructure, priority must also be given to the resettlement of the people currently sheltered at various camps for Internally Displace Persons (IDPs).
Buhari had also urged the World Bank to send a team to interface with officials of the federal government to do a proper and comprehensive assessment of the needs of the affected areas.
The Bank’s intervention, alongside those of other donor agencies, is critical in a dire situation that the North East region has been plunged into, although the fund should not be considered a free gift rather than the repayable bailout money it actually is.
There is a limit to what the government and the international community can achieve unless the organised private sector and genuine nongovernmental organisation chip in and offer help to rebuild certain aspects of the destroyed livelihoods of communities in the region.
As this column has proposed in the past, something akin to the US Marshal Plan for Europe in post-World War II, would be a fitting enough repose to rebuild the massive destruction in the North East communities.
Hospitals, schools, bridges for example have become nonexistent in some of the affected communities , and this calls for the urgent need for such a policy to, as much as practicable, return them to their previous status, if not better.
No matter how big the bailout money from the World Bank may appear, it will not be enough to address all the problems, making it imperative that others make their contributions as well.
 As President Buhari pointed out, priority should be given to the resettlement of all the IDPs to go back to their homes and pick up their lives.
  For the success of such interventions like the World Bank’s, there should be strict monitoring of the projects to ensure accountability.
From the outset, those to work on the projects should be people of integrity that have the interest of the project at heart and the commitment to execute it well. This is more so to avoid unnecessary hitches that could result in delays.
In this humanitarian crisis every second counts to bring succour to the affected people.
The World Bank’s intervention should be the beginning of a solid start for the North East, which will be a powerful demonstration to the misguided insurgents that only peace and order can bring development, not the senseless orgy of mindless murders and destruction of property that they have engaged in all these years.