The National Coordinator of the World Bank-supported HOPE Governance Program, Dr. Assad Hassan, has called on governments at all levels to leverage concessional loans from the Bank to deliberately develop their institutions and sustain governance reforms across the country.
A statement Communications Officer of the Program Joe Mutah Dr. Assad stated this in Enugu on Tuesday at the HOPE Governance South East Implementation Support Mission convened by the World Bank.
“In as much as the bank is a significant partner in this, they are gracious enough to give us soft loans, concessionary loans but I think the onus is on us to make sure that at the end of the day, we see how we can sustain these programs,” he stated.
He said the HOPE Governance Program is designed to strengthen governance and institutional mechanisms in the administration of basic education and primary health in order to deliver results.
According to Dr. Assad Hassan, while there have been other World Bank-funded reform programs in the past, the ability to sustain these reforms and translate them into tangible results will make a significant difference in governance in the country.
“What next? I think that question behooves us to look at ourselves in the mirror. What have we done after the precursor to this program —SFTAS? Did we just receive the incentives and move on?” he said.
The National Coordinator stressed the need for state governments to reform their systems as a proof of concept for attracting further interventions and support from multilateral institutions.
Dr. Assad used the occasion to commend the Enugu State Government for introducing far-reaching reforms in the administration of basic education and primary health in the state.
In his remarks, the World Bank Task Team Lead for the HOPE Governance Program, Mr. Ikechukwu Nweje, said the World Bank chose the Program for Result (PforR) Model as a deliberate strategy to assist state governments to built the capacity of their workforce to sustain the reform objectives of the Program.