By Chibisi Ohakah
Abuja
The agenda of the newly appointed Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele reechoed at the World Bank meetings in Washington last weekend as the quest to end extreme poverty and create sustainable jobs dominated discussions.
At the plenary session of the Bretton Woods institutions annual meetings, both the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Madame Christine Lagarde and the President of the World Bank, Mr. Jim Yong Kim, reiterated the need to focus on people-oriented programmes that would address the twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
Lagarde urged the global financial players to choose growth acceleration in place of stagnation, macroeconomic stability as against fragility and international solidarity instead of seclusion.
Kim called on all governments and institutions to channel resources towards key sectors that would help enhance economic growth and create jobs, educate the children and improve health.
It will be recalled that Mr. Emefiele had pledged to pursue a people-oriented CBN that would use its mandates to create jobs, enhance financial inclusion and maintain economic stability. Infrastructure finance which formed a major plank of Emefiele’s agenda also received attention at the plenary as Kim announced the creation of a Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) by the World Bank.
President Kim however, bemoaned the international response to the efforts to aid some West African countries affected by the Ebola scourge as being ‘late, inadequate and slow’.
The Nigerian delegation to this year’s meetings was led by the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the CBN governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who is the alternate governor at the Bretton Woods Institutions, while the minister of agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, minister of national planning, Abubakar O. Sulaiman, the CBN deputy governor, economic policy, Dr. (Mrs.) Sarah Alade and other government functionaries, were also in attendance.
