The National Universities Commission (NUC) and the World Bank have signed a new $65 million financing agreement aimed at strengthening governance, procurement, environmental, and social standards across Nigerian universities under the Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Enhancement (SPESSE) project.
The agreement was signed on Wednesday in Abuja during the execution of performance contracts involving participating universities, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), the World Bank, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abdullahi Ribadu, described the additional financing as:
“a renewed opportunity to consolidate achievements, scale impacts, and deepen sustainability measures.”
According to the NUC, the SPESSE initiative was created to address shortages of skilled professionals in:
- procurement
- environmental safeguards
- and social standards within Nigeria’s university system and public sector.
The project, initially launched in 2021 with an $80 million World Bank facility, now has a total funding portfolio of about $145 million after the fresh injection.
Officials said the programme has already:
- established six centres of excellence across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones
- developed postgraduate and undergraduate programmes
- introduced digital learning infrastructure
- and created more than 68 international partnerships.
The World Bank’s SPESSE Task Team Leader, Ishtiak Siddique, said more than 40,000 people have already benefited from the first phase of the project, while the new financing aims to train at least **24,000 additional Nigerians
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