By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The first green bond initiated by former Minister of Environment, Mrs Amina Mohammed, may be launched in a matter of weeks.
Mrs Mohammed resigned her appointment as the Minister to take up a job as the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations.
The launch of the green bond by Nigeria is the first for an emerging market country.
About N20 billion is expected to be realised from the first tranche of the exercise, while the second tranche is about the same amount and would be used to fund renewable energy, transport and agriculture projects in the country.
Mrs Mohammed told Reuters on the sidelines of a UN conference in Mexico on disaster risk reduction on Thursday that the Federal Government would take a step on the launch very soon.
“We’ve just had the budget approved, so I believe Nigeria will look, probably within the next few weeks, to doing (the bond issue),” the deputy UN scribe said.
Also, the Director of Climate Change Department in the Ministry of Environment, Mr Peter Tarfa, told a separate conference in Barcelona last week that the bond would be launched probably in the coming month.
The green bonds “have the potential to deliver the low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure needed in Nigeria… with access to private capital at scale,” he said.
According to Reuters, the green bond market has enjoyed strong growth in the last two years, with issuance jumping 105 percent last year alone to a record $72 billion.
Adedapo Adesanya