W’Bank restructures Nigeria’s $430m ID4D project, shifts deadline to 2026

• Country misses June 30 deadline to issue 148m NINs to citizens

To ensure more Nigerians enrolled for the National Identification Number (NIN) under the Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project, through the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the World Bank has promised to restructure the project to guarantee complete disbursement of the $430 million pledged by the financiers.

The Bretton Woods institution said the restructuring became necessary as the co-financiers, French Development Agency (AFD) and European Investment Bank (EIB), may cancel their financing if it (World Bank) ceased to be the implementor of the project after June 30, 2024, initial closure date for the project.

Due to lapses in the project, the bank noted that with the restructuring, the closure date had been extended by two years to June 30, 2026.

Under the financing plan, which was approved by the International Development Association (IDA) in 2020, AFD will release $100 million and EIB will fund it with $215 million, while the IDA, an arm of the World Bank adds $115 million.

“Both co-financers have indicated that they will cancel their financing if the World Bank is no longer the lead financier and implementor of this project,” it stated.

The extension, the document added, became necessary for the project to respond to the increasing demand for an inclusive and trusted digital ID system that strengthens the transparency and effectiveness of governance and the delivery of public services and programmes.

The plan of the project, when it was initiated in 2020, was that by June 2024, Nigeria would have issued 148 million NINs, but the country missed that target and several technical benchmarks set for the project. Only about 107 million NINs have been issued by the NIMC to Nigerians.

World Bank said the project was collaborating with Nigeria National Social Safety Net Programme-Scale Up (NASSP-SU) project to expand NIN enrolment deadline for poor and vulnerable individuals of households captured in the National Social Register (NSR).