The National Universities Commission (NUC) has signed an additional $65 million agreement with the World Bank under the Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement Project (SPESSE), aimed at strengthening specialised training in Nigerian universities.
Gatekeepers News reports that the SPESSE initiative, launched in 2021 with an initial $80 million World Bank facility, was designed to boost Nigeria’s capacity in procurement, environmental management, and social governance through university-based training programmes.
The fresh agreement was signed on Wednesday at the NUC headquarters in Abuja in the presence of representatives from participating universities, the World Bank, and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Abdullahi Ribadu said the new financing phase would consolidate earlier achievements and expand the project’s impact across participating institutions.
“The project was conceived to address a critical gap in the Nigerian university system,” Ribadu said.
“Insufficient supply of skilled professionals in procurement, environmental and social safeguards, as well as the limited availability of specialised academic programmes in these fields.”
According to him, six centres of excellence were established across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones under the coordination of the NUC and with support from the World Bank.
The centres include institutions such as Ahmadu Bello University and Lagos State University, alongside other universities across the country.
Ribadu said the project has achieved several milestones since its launch, including the development of curricula for short courses, postgraduate diplomas, master’s degrees, and undergraduate programmes.
“Today, these institutions are playing a strategic role in producing the skilled manpower required to support transparency, environmental responsibility, and socially inclusive development in Nigeria and beyond,” he said.
He added that investments in high-performance computing systems, digital learning platforms, live-streaming facilities, and learning management systems had strengthened teaching, research, and training across the centres.
Ribadu also disclosed that some institutions had begun enrolling foreign students, while more than 68 international partnerships had already been established.
“In 2025, certification protocols for all three thematic areas — procurement, environmental, and social standards — were developed and activated by the Bureau for Public Procurement, the Federal Ministry of Environment, and the Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs, respectively, to authenticate practitioners,” he said.
The NUC boss further revealed that three of the six centres had commenced PhD programmes, while the remaining centres are expected to begin theirs in the next academic session starting in July 2026.
“Across the project, we expect to see the production of at least 60 PhDs, the enrolment of no fewer than 60 foreign students, the facilitation of at least 18 staff internships, and the provision of no less than 60 student exchange programmes with foreign institutions,” he added.
Ribadu said the new funding phase would place greater emphasis on sustainability, environmental standards, and procurement reforms, including plans for electronic procurement systems.
“The government intends to have all procurements in the future done electronically. So all this will now be possible within this funding framework,” he said.
Also speaking, Ishtiak Siddique described the project as one of the World Bank’s most significant interventions in Nigeria despite its broader $17 billion portfolio in the country.
“This additional financing, you have already heard that two weeks ago, the additional financing of $65m became effective. But it is built on the success of the original $80m SPESSE project,” Siddique said.
“More than 40,000 people have already been trained in these three standards, which is a big deal.”
According to him, the additional funding aims to train another 24,000 Nigerians, particularly workers in critical public institutions.
“We are aiming even higher — at least an additional 24,000 people will be trained under the additional financing,” he said.
Siddique added that the project would support the rollout of an end-to-end electronic procurement system at the federal level before expansion to states.
“The way it is being designed, it takes advantage of new technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public procurement,” he said.
Meanwhile, Adebowale Adedokun said over 2,700 officers from public institutions and the private sector had already been trained and certified under the initiative.
“This project has so far trained and certified over 2,700 officers from various sectors of excellence and indeed from the private sector, drawn from MDAs at the federal, state, and local government levels,” Adedokun said.
He added that the new funding phase would also support online capacity-building programmes for small and medium-scale enterprises as well as policymakers managing public funds.
