NEWMAP begins Joint FGN/World Bank Supervision Mission to States

Dateline: Calabar 24/11/2016

A joint enhanced Supervision mission for the Nigeria erosion and watershed management project commenced from Monday 21^st November 2016 beginning with special meetings with the Federal Project Management Unit (FPMU). The mission involving the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), represented by the Federal Project Management Unit (FPMU) and the World Bank (WB). The mission will take the team through the 1st mover states beginning with Cross River, Abia, Imo ending with Enugu state on 4^th December 2016.

Mission Objectives:

The mission objective is to advance the implementation of NEWMAP at the National and States as well as assess the current progress in line with the agreed actions from the Mid Term Review (MTR). During the mission, the team will be meeting with key implanting MDAs. The team will also visit some selected project sites in NEWMAP implementing States in Nigeria.

Specific Objectives of the Mission

The specific objectives of the mission are to: (i) review the implementation status of bio-remediation and watershed management activities; (ii) discuss and resolve outstanding counterpart fund payments with Federal and State Governments; (iii) review and follow-up on the status of the implementation of Safeguards instruments; (iv) review and follow-up on the status of the implementation of Procurement Plans and any pending Financial Management actions; (v) review and advance the phasing and implementation of activities in the new States; (vi) monitor and validate the projected disbursement profile for FY I7 to ensure candour and realism of disbursement projections, reduce the variance between planned and actual disbursements and identify corrective measures to ramp up disbursement for results; (vii) commence the restructuring of the project as advised by the MTR; and (viii) follow-up on pending issues, including Impact Evaluation and the agreed actions from the MTR mission.

Mission Participants

The mission was led by Dr. Amos Abu, Task Team Leader (TTL) NEWMAP on behalf of the World Bank and Mr. Salisu Dahiru, National Project Coordinator (NPC) on behalf of the Government of Nigeria and Federal Project Management Unit (FPMU) respectively.

Expected Deliverables

• Updated Status of Bio- remediation and watershed management
• Resolve issues of outstanding counterpart fund payment by the Federal and State government
• Updated status on the implementation of safeguards instruments
• Validated procurement plan and pending Financial management actions
• Projected disbursement profile for FY17 Validated
• Pending issues, including Impact Evaluation, agreed action on MTR mission resolved; and
• Production of Mission report and Aide Memoire.