- World Bank targets electricity access for 32 million Nigerians by 2032.
- Another 58 million people are expected to gain access to broadband internet.
- The bank plans to mobilise $4.1bn in private capital for infrastructure and agribusiness.
The World Bank has unveiled a new plan to connect 32 million Nigerians to electricity and provide 58 million additional people with broadband internet access by 2032.
Eko Hot Blog reports the targets are contained in the World Bank Group’s new Country Partnership Framework for Nigeria, covering the period from 2026 to 2032.
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The framework was presented on Wednesday in Lagos by the Acting Country Director of the World Bank, Taimur Samad, during the Industrialisation and Competitiveness Forum organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group.
The plan is also expected to support 9.5 million farmers through programmes aimed at improving agricultural production, value addition and access to markets.
According to the World Bank, it also intends to mobilise $4.1 billion in private capital for infrastructure and agribusiness during the period covered by the framework.
The new framework focuses on creating more and better private-sector jobs, strengthening competitiveness, improving human capital and increasing resilience among Nigerians and ecosystems.
Key areas of intervention include distributed renewable energy, broadband infrastructure, financing for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural value chains.
The World Bank fact sheet accompanying the framework listed its major targets as providing electricity to 32 million people, expanding broadband usage to 58 million more people, supporting 9.5 million farmers and mobilising $4.1 billion in private capital.
Under its competitiveness and growth objective, the bank is targeting a 30 per cent increase in Nigeria’s non-oil revenue-to-GDP ratio.
It also plans to enable $6 billion in private capital and support an additional 250,000 small and medium-sized enterprises with access to financial services.
For human capital development, the framework targets 40 million beneficiaries of quality health, nutrition and population services.
It also aims to support 19.4 million students with improved education and reduce the proportion of children under five suffering from stunting by eight percentage points.
The World Bank further targets 41 million additional beneficiaries of social safety-net programmes and 11.7 million people with improved resilience to climate-related risks.
To expand electricity access, the framework includes a $750 million World Bank programme and a $200 million facility from the International Finance Corporation for distributed renewable energy.
A further $500 million programme is planned for resilient digital infrastructure, while another $500 million pipeline programme will focus on sustainable agricultural value chains.
The World Bank said the new approach would concentrate its support on fewer areas capable of delivering large-scale and measurable results.
The framework builds on the bank’s previous engagement with Nigeria, which provided more than $12 billion in support for national programmes, with significant emphasis on state-level and results-based financing.
The World Bank currently has a $15.9 billion active portfolio involving 30 projects in Nigeria.
The institution said two-thirds of the portfolio is implemented through national programmes at the state level, while half uses results-based financing.
The new partnership framework will also strengthen collaboration between the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
The World Bank said it would continue working with states while maintaining its focus on climate resilience, gender issues and interventions in conflict-affected areas.
Other areas identified under the framework include macroeconomic stability, governance, business-enabling reforms, early childhood development, social protection, skills development, digital transformation, power and energy access, agriculture and access to finance.
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