National Universities Commission (NUC), has selected Six federal universities to host the Sustainable Procurement, Environmental and Social Standards Centres of Excellence (SPESSCEs) .
SPESSE is a multi-sectoral project, with support from the World Bank, which seeks to address training, professionalisation and research in procurement, environmental and social standards, through certification, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate studies; to support governance, increase transparency, competition, equal opportunity, sustainability as well as environmental and social standard management in the public and private sectors.
A statement by the Project Coordinator SPESSE Project Implementation Unit of the National Universities Commission in Abuja listed the Universities to include the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, (ATBU), Bauchi; Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria; and Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi (FUAM);
Others are Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO); University of Benin (UNIBEN) and University of Lagos (UNILAG).
According to the statement, the six Centres were selected through a an objective, competitive and rigorous selection process, while the project was designed with the full participation of the private sector, including the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, which represented the Industry in the design of the curricula by NUC.
It explains that SPESSE will improve, significantly, Nigeria’s capacity for procurement, environmental and social standards.