By Aliyu DANLADI
The World Bank has announced an additional $600 million (about N216 billion) for projects in the Lake Chad Basin region devastated by the Boko Haram terrorists.
The Bank made the announcement at the Berlin Conference on Boko Haram crisis, which held on Monday and Tuesday in Berlin.
The two day high-level humanitarian conference was organised by the Governments of Nigeria, Germany and Norway, together with the United Nations.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Islamic Development Bank also supported the Lake Chad Basin region with grants and concessional loans respectively.
The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr Mark Lowcock, thanked the banks and countries for their generous donations and supports in a series of tweets.
Lowcock said: “Thank you World Bank for your incredible support to Lake Chad Basin and for announcing an additional $600 million for projects throughout the region.
“Many thanks AfDB for your grant of US $35.65 million to the Lake Chad Basin as well as the announcement of US $57.3 million in concessional loans.”
According to him, the Islamic Development Bank is supporting the Lake Chad Basin with $80 million in concessional loans.
The UN humanitarian chief also thanked Ireland for pledging 7.3 million euros; Sweden, 32 million pounds; the Netherlands, 12.1 million pounds; Italy, 15 million pounds; and Poland, 230,000 pounds.
“I was so pleased to see the contributions from donors to development activities in the #LakeChadBasin through the UN Peace-building Support Office,” Lowcock said.
It would be recalled that the conference raked in about $2.52 billion dollars in pledges and concessional loans, with Germany, the host country, pledging 265 million euros and Norway, 125 million dollars.
The others were Switzerland, 20 million dollars; France, 131 million Euros; Belgium, 45 million Euros; Finland, 2.3 million Euros; and Denmark, 72.5 million dollars.
The United Kingdom pledged 146 million pounds; Canada, 68 million Canadian dollars; European Union, 231.5 million euros; Luxembourg, 40 million euros and Spain, 3.2 million euros.
