The World Bank has approved a $500 million loan that is intended to help end female education inequality in Nigeria. This is with the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), which will be implemented in 7 states in Nigeria.
World Bank disclosed this new development through a press statement, noting that the credit facility is to be disbursed through the International Development Association (IDA). The statement further said that this will provide credit for human development in developing nations as well as help alleviate the hiccups around the girl child education.
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Maturity Period Of The Loans
This $500 million credit facility will mature in 30 years. It also has a 5 year grace period, with low to zero interest rate.
Beneficiaries Of The Loans
According to the statement by the Bank, the project would be implemented mainly in states which are most susceptible to such plight. The states which are mostly from the Northern parts of the country include Kano, Kebbi, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Plateau. The only state from the south is, which will be a beneficiary is Ekiti.
According to the forecast by the World Bank, a minimum of 6 million girls and boys would benefit from the project. It is clear that this World Bank loan would enable girls to gain some digital skills as well as improve their digital literacy, life skills, health, and education.
According to UNICEF, about 27.2% of girls across Nigeria are not enrolled in schools. As a result, teenage girls in Nigeria face multiple challenges with completing secondary school.
The northern part of the country which is the worse hit has a greater challenge because they lack schools. Typically, there is just one secondary school for absorbing about ten primary schools within a community. And most often than not, these schools are in dilapidated conditions, lacking basic amenities.
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One of the biggest human capital investment is in developing and significantly raising funds to boost the educational sector. The AGILE project will enable Nigeria to make progress in improving access and quality of education for girls, especially in northern Nigeria.
The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri said, “This World Bank loan will as well help in addressing the key structural impediments in a comprehensive way that will create the enabling environment to help Nigeria ensure better outcomes for girls, which will translate into their ability to contribute to productivity and better economic outcomes for themselves and the country.”
“Poor condition of infrastructure and a lack of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities makes it difficult for girls to stay in school. In addition, close to 80 percent of poor households are in the north, which makes it very challenging for them to cover the direct and indirect costs of schooling. All these factors have contributed towards limiting the number of girls that have access to secondary school.
If nothing is done, 1.3 million girls out of the 1.85 million who began primary school in 2017/2018 in the northern states will drop out before reaching the last year of junior secondary school,” the World Bank said in the statement.
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What Entrepreneurs Stand To Benefit
The Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI) is a public-private partnership, which is aimed at promoting the transition of adolescent girls from school to productive employment through innovative interventions that are tested, and then scaled-up or replicated if successful.
Entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the Education sector can strategically position themselves to get access to this World Bank loan and build a formidable ecosystem in the sector.
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