The World Bank has released a report that concludes that funds stolen from the Nigerian people by former Dictator Sani Abacha, are repatriated to Nigeria from Switzerland under an agreement signed in 2005, were utilized for development projects in five sectors that will help Nigeria move toward Millennium Development Goals in that country.

This report, Utilization of Repatriated Abacha Loot , is the result of an agreement between the governments of Nigeria and Switzerland , and the World Bank, following a ruling by Swiss courts whereby approximately $500 million held in accounts owned by the Abacha family was to be returned to the Government of Nigeria. The Nigerian Government agreed to use the funds in key MDG sectors, and to cooperate with the World Bank on monitoring how the funds were used. The repatriation represented an important milestone in Nigeria 's fight against corruption, and the first time that looted funds have been returned to an African country.

This monitoring was undertaken as a part of a larger review of the public expenditures and public financial management in Nigeria (PEMFAR), which seeks to assess and improve structures and systems in that country. Civil society organizations played an integral and important role in field visits to 51 randomly selected projects, where 168 people were interviewed, including those involved in project development and potential project beneficiaries. The projects were distributed across five priority sectors (roads, power, health, education and water) and all six geo-political zones in Nigeria . An analysis of actual federal budget spending for 2003-2005 suggests a considerable increase in public investments in the five MDG sectors. A significant portion of the overall increase could be attributed to additional funds made available under the repatriation program.

Of the 51 projects reviewed, 23 were described as completed, 26 were at various stages of completion, and 2 were described as stopped.   All 23 completed projects were described as functioning, with varying levels of utilization.

The report notes that the Federal Government has recently launched several important initiatives to address weakness in budget recording, reporting, and monitoring identified in the report  including putting in place a monitoring system for tracking the utilization of debt relief proceeds.