Nigeria and others benefit from $2.69bn guarantees from the world bank

World Bank has disclosed that Nigeria and 19 other countries benefitted from about $2.69bn guarantees between the years 2020 and 2021.

The guarantees were issued under the COVID-19 Fast Track Facility.

The other countries that benefited from it are Albania, Argentina, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Botswana, Chile, Eswatini, Georgia, Ghana, Kosovo, Lesotho, Moldova, Montenegro, Mozambique, North Macedonia, Peru, Serbia, Ukraine, and Zambia.

This was contained in one of the newly released FY21financial statements of the bank, precisely the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency’s financial statement.

According to what’s written in the statement, MIGA launched a $6.5bn Fast-track facility in April 2020in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support private sector investors and lenders in emerging markets and developing countries.

“In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MIGA launched a $6.5bn Fast-track facility in April 2020. The facility was geared towards supporting private sector investors and lenders in emerging markets and developing economies, and was structured around the following three pillars.”

other countries including Nigeria have all benefited under the second pillar with guarantees totaling $1.127bn in FY20 and $1.563bn in FY21.

With this pillar, the guarantees were offered for capital optimization, which means support for financial institutions in extending lending in host countries by freeing up risk-weighted assets locked up in maintaining their mandatory reserves with the central banks.