Nigeria To Roll Out N20bn Green Bond In April

Nigeria’s minister of environment, Amina Muhammed has announced that the federal government will commence issuance of the first N20 billion sovereign green bond will commence in April 2017 and will be used to fund projects to reduce carbon emissions and develop renewable energy in the country, the Federal Government has said.

The Minister, who is due to join the United Nations as deputy secretary general stated this yesterday at the Green Bonds Capital Market & Investors Conference at the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos. Tagged ‘Green Bonds: Investing in Nigeria’s Sustainable Development’, Mohammed said the bond will be the first to issued in Africa. She said the green bond issuance will be the first stage in enabling Nigeria to tap into the growing global market for green bonds. She said the bond would be aimed at domestic markets and its focus would be on low-emission projects in areas such as solar power, agriculture, transport and deforestation.

Mohammed said the Ministry of Finance through the Debt Management Office (DMO) which are responsible for managing the process have been instrumental to laying solid foundations for this process. She said: “Other partners on the Government side – the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, The Office of the Accountant General, The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have all taken steps to guide this in the right direction and are making the necessary adjustment to processes to ensure this succeeds.
“The improving partnership with Government and the Private Sector will keep the momentum of the Green Bonds process. It provides opportunities for the Private Sector to bring the process of connecting the three strands of sustainable development – economic, social and environment for long term Sustainable Development,” she said.
Acting President, Professor Yemi Osibanjo who was the special guest of honour, said the bond will be used to fund a range of climate-related initiatives including mass transit, energy and aforestration programme. According to him, the launch of the first African green bonds is the one that will tap into local and international investors. Osibanjo noted that it was a crucial achievement for Nigerians’ determined battle against the consequences of climate change, adding that the challenges of climate change has the potential of increasing natural disasters affecting foods and water energy supplies.
He said:”As confronted with these realities in reviewing securities concerns in lake Chad region and parts of northern Nigeria, with the group of experts and government officials . The drying up of lake Chad has made the destruction of hundreds and thousands of agricultural livelihoods and worsening of poverty in this region and more importantly fueling civil conflicts in the region as fight over available arable land flay up regularly. “A recent World Bank report shows that climate change is an acute threat to poorest people across the world with power to push more than a hundred million people back to poverty in the next 15 years.
And the poorest region in the world, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian will be hit the hardest. “Green bonds means that the proceed will be applied to environment and climate friendly on green projects. We are witnessing an alliance between finance and environment. It is an opportunity to deepen our capital market and make a dent in combating poverty and inequality.
“We are doing 20,000 more homes on solar energy, which will benefit from the green bonds. Another project, which will benefit from the green bond includes renewable energy. An important feature of the 2017 budget is energizing education, it will also benefit from the green bond. Power has posed a major challenge to effective learning in our universities. So,this programme will give access to power to 37 Federal Universities and seven University Teaching Hospitals among others”.