The World Bank has blamed weak institutional capacity at the sub-national level for the failure of Nigeria’s $700m Sustainable Urban and Rural Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme.

The programme, which aims to increase access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services and strengthen sector institutions across participating states, has recorded limited progress nearly four years after approval.

The bank disclosed this in its latest Implementation Status and Results Report for Nigeria’s WASH Programme-for-Results, dated June 3, 2025.

According to the report, a mid-term review conducted in late 2024 identified that “delays in budget allocations and programme execution [were] due to a lack of understanding of the Programme-for-Results instrument among state-level decision-makers.”

It added that the poor grasp of the PforR structure had slowed implementation, especially infrastructure-related activities.

In response to these challenges, the programme was restructured in February 2025 to revise key disbursement-linked indicators and introduce scalability aligned with the 2022 global Policy, Institutional, and Regulatory framework and Nigeria’s national sanitation strategy.

However, performance remained below expectations. Out of a revised commitment of $670.21m under the programme, only $93.59m had been disbursed as of May 2025, representing just 14 per cent of the total fund.

The World Bank rated progress toward the development objectives and overall implementation as “moderately unsatisfactory.” Despite a target of 6.1 million people to be reached with basic drinking water by 2027, only 58,585 had benefited so far.

The bank attributed the shortfall to delays in procurement and poor planning by the states. “The number initially reported by the states for verification was 83,580 people… The shortfall in achieving the desired targets can be attributed to the delayed commencement of the procurement process by the states,” it stated.

Only four states, Delta, Ekiti, Gombe, and Katsina, submitted results for verification in the second year of the programme. Among them, Katsina accounted for the largest share, with 36,835 beneficiaries.

The report also revealed dismal results in sanitation infrastructure. Katsina was the only state to submit results under the sanitation indicator. However, “out of the 86 sanitation facilities that were reported by the state, only one fully adhered to the stipulated standards and requirements,” the report said.

Institutional WASH facilities in schools and healthcare centres also performed poorly. Although 43 facilities were submitted for verification, only 22 met the required standards.

“The lag was due to the late start of the procurement process in some of the states and the late understanding of the design specifications for institutional WASH facilities,” the bank explained.

Further breakdown showed that only 18 urban and four rural facilities were verified across Ekiti, Gombe, and Katsina.


In terms of capacity development, the report noted that State Programme Implementation Units were established in all seven participating states, and 98 per cent of the required staff had been recruited.

However, systemic challenges persisted. For instance, different accounting systems across states hindered financial reporting. The bank observed, “The PIUs are using different accounting software, making it extremely difficult for the reports to be consolidated.”

Although gender-based violence committees and grievance redress mechanisms were in place, other performance indicators remained poor.

None of the newly created engineering or technical roles had been filled by women, and leadership roles for women in WASH community groups remained anecdotal and often limited to financial positions such as treasurers.

The performance indicator on access to improved sanitation facilities in urban areas remained at zero, and no results were recorded for community-wide sanitation efforts such as open defecation-free verification.

“There has been a lot of confusion regarding this DLI and no state so far (even those declaring entire LGAs ODF) has achieved any results under it as of Programme Year 2,” the bank noted.

Despite ongoing works in states such as Kaduna, Ekiti, and Plateau, the World Bank warned that the programme risked falling far short of its objectives if state-level capacity issues were not urgently addressed.


It also rated political and fiduciary risks as “high,” while maintaining an overall risk rating of “substantial.” The programme, which became effective in January 2022, is expected to close by June 2027.