Nigeria made top class in the “2017 year in review” ranking of the World Bank Group (WBG) Public Private Partnerships (PPP) blogs. According to Yelena Osipova-Stocker,  the Online Communications Officer for the Infrastructure, PPPs and Guarantees Group of the WBG; “2017 was a busy year in the world of infrastructure and public-private partnerships at the World Bank Group: from new knowledge products and tools, to innovations and success … As we look at our top content that resonated most with our blog readers, we have categorized these posts into three broad categories”.

Yelena listed the categories to include Leading voices in the field, Women and WBG Knowledge Products. ICRC came top four in the Leading voices in the field category where the WBG “feature leading experts in infrastructure, public-private partnerships, and financial services from around the world”.

The blog that brought such glowing recognition to Nigeria was written by the Acting DG of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Engr. Chidi Izuwah Snr with the title “Nigeria blazes the trail for PPP disclosures with new web portal”.

In the blog, Izuwah discussed the launch of the ICRC PPP Contracts Disclosure Web Portal noting that Nigeria was “the first country to launch this unique and strategically important PPP disclosure web portal”.

He noted that “The portal helps fulfil Nigeria’s President Buhari’s goals of fostering transparency and accountability in PPPs in order to attract the much-needed foreign capital and expertise to scale up Nigeria’s infrastructure through PPPs and promote sustainable growth and development.”

He added that within the first 100 days of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the President had stressed his commitment to attracting the private capital and expertise needed to address Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit. This led to a renewed engagement between the World Bank Group and Nigeria to enhance the attractiveness of PPP in the country.

“One major PPP transparency initiative is the study conducted by the World Bank Group’s PPP team between September 2016 and April 2017 using the Framework for Disclosure in PPPs. The team came up with a PPP Disclosure Diagnostic Report for Nigeria that examined the political, legal, and institutional environment for disclosure of PPPs”.

He noted further that “based on this, the report made specific recommendations to improve disclosure in Nigeria by creating an enhanced framework for disclosure of PPPs applicable to all federal government PPP contracts, and move toward greater transparency and openness in all areas of governance in Nigeria”.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/ppps/year-review-12-top-blogs-2017

http://blogs.worldbank.org/ppps/nigeria-blazes-trail-ppp-disclosures-new-web-portal