The World Bank has granted additional $700m loan to Nigeria to enhance adolescent girl’s education, the bank announced on Friday.
This is the third loan granted by the global lender to Nigeria under the President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

According to the statement, the $700 million loan is to enhance adolescent girls’ learning and empowerment by providing additional funds to the ongoing project, Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE).

“The World Bank approved additional financing of $700m for Nigeria to scale up the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment programme whose goal is to improve secondary education opportunities among girls in targeted states.

“The additional financing will scale up project activities from the current seven states to eleven additional states and increase the targeted beneficiaries to include out-of-school girls, those who are married, and those who have disabilities.”

The seven AGILE beneficiary states are Borno, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, and Plateau.

According to the World Bank, the new loan is to push the project to 18 states and help Nigeria to achieve better education and health outcomes for girls.

Commenting on the project, Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, said: “Closing the gender gaps in economic empowerment by ensuring girls have access to education and skills is key for Nigeria’s development and economic prosperity.

“Nigeria’s working population will soon be one of the youngest and largest around the world, which means that investing in adolescent girls is imperative when addressing overall economic prospects and growth.”

The statement also said that aside from the girls that would benefit from the financing, others included over 15 million students and beneficiaries, such as teachers, administrators, families, communities, and staff in existing and newly constructed schools.