Poverty Level Has Reduced In Nigeria � World Bank

The World Bank has praised economic policies of President Goodluck Jonathan�s administration, declaring that it has led to slight reduction in the country�s poverty index from 48 to 46 percent. Mouktar Diop, World Bank�s vice president for Africa during his visit to President Jonathan yesterday said that Nigeria�s economic indicators remained positive even times of recession. �At the time when the economy is going down, we have seen that Nigeria has been keeping a growth rate which is rather significant. So, I was here to hear from the President�s priority and discuss other issues such as how poverty has been evolving in the country and what we can do to accelerate the reduction of poverty. �Our work recently has shown that there is slight reduction in the level of poverty in Nigeria moving from 48 to 46 percent. The trend is good. It needs to be accelerated obviously. What we discussed are the policies that we can put in place to accelerate the pace of poverty reduction in Nigeria,� Daily Trust quoted him as saying. Diop also said the World Bank has decided to intervene in Nigeria�s energy crisis saying it has decided to put up a task force which will include private sector branch to support the reform. Unlike the un-encouraging statistics that has been attributed to Nigeria by international organisations in recent times, this is quite welcoming. However, some Nigerians disagree with the statistics saying there is no visible improvement in the quality of lives of the average Nigerian and the poverty level is still high in Nigeria.