BOI MD: Increase Funding For Agric, Infrastructure Development

The Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Development Finance Institutions (ANDFIs), Mr Olukayode Pitan, has called for increased funding from all Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in Nigeria to tackle some of the economic challenges facing the country.

Pitan who is also the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry stated this at the opening session of the association’s second annual general assembly with the theme: “Innovative financing for sustainable growth and development.”

He said it had become compelling for DFIs to increase the level of their intervention due to the fact that Nigeria is home to an estimated 200 million people, and projected to experience monumental population growth to about 400 million people by the year 2050.

He said while there has been marked economic improvement through the years from various intervention programmes and infrastructural investments, the World Bank in its projection this year stated that Nigeria would be home to 95.1 million poor people.

Pitan said what this means is that more efforts are required in the area of poverty alleviation, infrastructural and human capital development, agriculture, and industry among others.

“The actions of all of us at this event shall have a significant input to determining whether the growth of Nigeria’s population will promote prosperity and improve the livelihood of the Nigerian people or become a source of fragility, social tension, and increased economic hardships.

“Nigerian DFIs have the potential to address these issues working in synergy with the organised private sector as well as the three tiers of government and collectively, we can deliver the level of sustainable social and economic development that we desire,” he said.