TheCable

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) says it will commit $72 million to support six Nigerian states in providing improved services particularly in primary health care, education, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to citizens.

The agency said it will achieve this goal through its state accountability, transparency, and effectiveness (State2State) activity, which will last for a period of five years, from 2020 to 2025.

Speaking at the draft schedule for the World Bank’s state fiscal transparency, accountability and sustainability (SFTAS) assessment workshop organised by USAID in Abuja, John Onyeukwu, deputy chief of party, USAID State2State activity, said the project is aimed at strengthening governance system with focus on public finance and management related to the delivery of WASH services.

He listed the beneficiary states as Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi,  Gombe, Adamawa, Bauchi and Sokoto.

Onyeukwu said the support provided to states comes amid dwindling resources, insecurity and rising social challenges in the country.

“Our work is to basically provide capacity for states to be able to do better, and provide better services for citizens. We will help states free up resources and use the funds to build schools, standardise health care and help provide support for WASH. These are areas that once you work on, you will lift people out of poverty,” he said.

Onyeukwu added that the State2State activity is working to support these states prepare for the next SFTAS process.

He said SFTAS is a world bank programme aimed at helping states institutionalise their processes, especially their financial management processes through the provision of grants.

“Some states have been able to make as much as $12 million from it and that’s a lot of money and can impact on citizens. Every state in  Nigeria participates in the SFTAS programme every year,” he said.

“What states receive depends on their performance. Some states have received as much as $13 million, some have relied as low as $1 million depending on states performance on.”

Onyeukwu also said SFTAS has helped states improve their internally generated revenue (IGR).

“Every state is increasing their IGR, Ebonyi said they now make N800 million to N1.1 billion. States you think are poor and educationally disadvantaged have done creditably well on improving their public finance management,” he said.