Nigeria: Korea grants $ 13 million to Nigeria to promote e-governance
August 8th 2021
In Nigeria, phase 1 of the e-government capacity building project, implemented between 2013 and 2019, was fully funded by South Korea.
On Thursday August 5 in Abuja, South Korea, represented by its financial aid agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), signed a new $ 13 million project agreement with the Nigerian Ministry of Communications and the digital economy. Isa Pantami, the relevant minister, said at the signing that the amount of assistance KOICA has provided for electronic governance (e-government) was the highest ever given to his country.
In a statement, the Nigerian KOICA office said the partnership is for the implementation of the “ Nigeria Digital Governance Foundation Building Project 2020-2026 ”. According to her, this project – fully funded by the Korean government through grant aid – should strengthen the capacity to implement the national master plan for e-governance, improve service delivery in the online administration and extend them by activating the Government Service Portal (www.services.gov.ng), as well as facilitating obtaining the NIN (national identification number) by creating registration centers additional.
Isa Pantami acknowledged the willingness of the federal government to promote the establishment of e-government in the country, adding that his ministry was fully ready to fulfill the ambitions of the new project which aims to accelerate the deployment of measures relating to the e-government in Nigeria.
Woochan Chang, Country Director of KOICA, for his part called for the full activation of the Presidential Council for E-Government, which he sees as an important engine for the operationalization of activities as they are conceived in the new project. For him, the new project activities are closely aligned with the priorities of the National Strategy for the Digital Economy 2020-2030.
As a reminder, the World Bank approved in February 2020 the digital identification project for the development of Nigeria. The aim is to bring the number of people with a NIN to 150 million by 2023. $ 430 million has been mobilized for this by the International Development Association of the World Bank ($ 115 million), l French Development Agency ($ 100 million) and the European Investment Bank ($ 215 million).
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