In a statement released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on April 13, 2023, the apex bank warned Nigerians to disregard a fake recruitment portal purportedly published by the bank. CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Dr. Isa AbdulMumin, said that the bank was currently not engaged in any general recruitment exercise. This announcement was made just as the Deputy Director of Development Finance and Head of Financial Inclusion, Paul Oluikpe, called for more participation by both the public and private sectors in financing green projects. This was during a session at the ongoing IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings, where he spoke on Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) with the theme, “Scaling Public-Private Cooperation to Advance Inclusive Green Finance.”
Unsuspecting applicants were allegedly lured into divulging sensitive information about their Bank Verification Number (BVN) among others and rejected physical disabilities. However, the CBN spokesman has confirmed that the bank would never request for sensitive details of intending applicants nor discriminate against persons with physical disabilities. Consequently, the umbrella financial institution in Nigeria has warned members of the public to be wary of fraudulent recruitment agents bent on taking advantage of the employment challenge to defraud eligible applicants, particularly young graduates.
Fraudsters lure unsuspecting users with such portals.
While this fraudulent portal in question was used to impersonate the Central Bank of Nigeria, online scammers also use websites of similar to defraud unsuspecting online users. They request their sensitive details and promise them things such as employment, grants from the Federal Government, scholarship, student stipend, or some other false promises. In turn, these scammers use the details they gather through the phishing portal to carry out their dubious activities. These sets of information may also be sold to spammers.
Meanwhile, Oluikpe has called for more participation by both the public and private sectors in financing green projects. These are projects that makes products or develops technologies that are primarily aimed at reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. According to him, climate change is a global challenge, requiring innovation, adaptation and transitioning from current practices which have proven unsustainable, to sustainable approaches to delivering value, especially for vulnerable groups such as MSMEs, women, the youth, internally displaced people, rural areas and other target groups. “Sustainable finance can play a role in this transition, and to do so, innovation is imperative. Sustainable finance needs to be democratized, and access enhanced and this requires catalyzing finance, and the private sector has proven adept at this,” he said.
Oluikpe said green projects are vital to mitigate climate change.
The CBN representative noted that it was critical to invest in projects that mitigate climate change, noting that it was a global challenge that requires innovation, adaptation and transitioning from current practices. He also stressed that public sector, policies, and regulations should be more skewed toward promoting innovative products and services in green finance/sustainable finance. In the public sector, he said the private sector can play a veritable role in mobilizing finance and channeling interventions to the segments most at need. Both stakeholders could begin to see areas of convergence, mutuality and complementarity in advancing the objectives of green finance.
AFI Inclusive Green Finance Working Group is a group of policymakers with technical experience and knowledge regarding IGF policies and initiatives from the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) member institutions. They came together to discuss and generate practical recommendations, lessons and new knowledge to advance sustainable financial inclusion. In 2017, at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt AFI Member countries committed to exploring the linkages between Financial Inclusion, Climate Change, and Green Finance and about ways in which it can be strengthened through peer learning and knowledge sharing on these interconnected policy areas.
Green Finance Working Group has a number of objectives.
Consequently, in 2019 at the GPF in Rwanda, the Inclusive Green Finance Working Group was established and convened. Currently, it has 68 member institutions from 58 countries and has developed 13 knowledge products and 11 policy changes since inception in 2019. Its objectives include: the creation of an enabling environment for inclusive green finance amongst its members; creation of a common understanding of the topic of inclusive green finance by sharing experiences and building a taxonomy of inclusive green finance policies and regulations; establishing linkages and provide inputs, where appropriate, to global networks working in the area of green finance and sustainable financial inclusion; seeking to benefit from and contribute to the growing body of knowledge and best practice in this area, among others.
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