A roundtable of public and private sector infrastructure experts convened by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, has recommended rapid action by the Nigerian government to help ensure that private capital can play a larger role in solving Nigeria’s infrastructure bottlenecks, especially power.

IFC convened the fourth quarterly session of its infrastructure roundtable series during the final week of July.  The roundtable session focused on encouraging medium-scale power generation projects serving a core group of industrial customers. Such examples can help meet urgent needs by Nigerian consumers for lower-cost energy.

These projects could also demonstrate the effectiveness of private initiatives and encourage further policy changes leading to a larger scale, longer-term transformation of the sector.

Jyrki Koskelo, IFC VP for Global Industries, said, “The long-term success of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s banking sector reforms is dependent on government rapidly encouraging market demand for capital in large, commercially viable projects, especially in infrastructure. To improve the competitiveness of Nigerian small and medium enterprises, power and transport infrastructure have to be improved and transformed sooner rather than later.”

IFC challenged prospective private financiers and project sponsors at the roundtable to pool and commit their risk capital for early-stage project development that will create well-structured projects capable of attracting further equity and debt financing. Koskelo committed IFC to reciprocate through financial and advisory support of such efforts.

Solomon Adegbie-Quaynor, IFC Country Manager, Nigeria, said, “Over 90 percent of Nigeria’s industrial customers self-generate base load power on a relatively small scale and with poor efficiency. We should encourage medium-sized gas-fueled efficient power supply with regulatory flexibility to distribute within and around industrial clusters.

Such changes would ensure that the productive sectors of industry, including SMEs, would receive reliable and affordable power supply that leads to increased employment and higher incomes for Nigerians.”