The World Bank has announced plans to restructure the Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project in Nigeria.
The project, launched with a funding of $200 million, has faced challenges in meeting its objectives and will undergo significant changes to improve its effectiveness.
The IDEAS project, which aimed at enhancing skills acquisition in Nigeria, has shown limited progress in several key areas over the past two years. Component 1 of the project, which focuses on providing grants to federal and state colleges, was particularly affected, with unsatisfactory ratings due to incomplete workshop renovations and delayed equipment procurement.
Component 2, targeting the training of master crafts persons and apprentices, also recorded slow progress. Although other project components showed some improvement, they were still limited in scale.
The project was approved on February 18, 2020, to enhance the capacity of the Nigerian skills development system to produce relevant skills for the formal and informal sectors.
Findings revealed that out of the $200 million, only about $34.88 million has been released by the World Bank due to the poor performance of the project, the World Bank has not released more funds, which are tied to meeting certain project criteria.
The report read: “The Mid-Term Review (MTR) mission for the Project took place between October 3-and 8, 2023. The mission held meetings with the Federal Ministry of Education (FME), the six participating states (Abia, Benue, Edo, Ekiti, Gombe and Kano) and the selected federal and state technical colleges (TCs).
“The mission assessed the reasons for which the project has not performed as envisaged and identified adjustments and changes in project design, implementation arrangements, and resource allocations so that the project could remain relevant, be implemented effectively, and contribute to the country’s goal to produce skilled manpower for the formal and the informal sector.
“The progress towards the Project development objectives and overall implementation progress has remained slow for about two years with limited progress on each component. Component 1 providing grants to federal and state colleges continues to be rated unsatisfactory due to limited in the strengthening of technical education in priority trades.
“Workshop renovations are incomplete for 101 out of 114 targeted trades, and equipment procurement is lagging. Component 2, training master crafts persons and apprentices, is moderately unsatisfactory with slow progress. Component 3 has improved, rated moderately satisfactory, with training initiated for Technical Teachers and Instructors. Component 4 progress is moderately satisfactory, but at a limited scale.
“This fund aims to provide scalable and cost-effective skills training in priority trades, linking trainees with employers, and ensuring placement in wage employment or support for self-employment.”
The restructuring process, expected to be finalized by March 2024, will also see a revision of the results framework. This includes modifying the intermediate indicators and their targets.
That’s great they should remember the artisanal miners also in Ebonyi state