The World Bank Group said on Sunday, October 11, that the maximum volume of private financing its projects, loans and guarantees could help mobilise in Nigeria during its fiscal year 2026 stood at $5.79 billion, benefiting SMEs, digital services, agriculture and industry.
This amount does not correspond to a single disbursement or to a fully secured envelope. It adds up private capital that is expected or already linked to several transactions with separate timetables, with support from the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
The main component aimed at small businesses is the FINCLUDE programme. Backed by $500 million in public financing from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association, it is expected to mobilise nearly $1.89 billion in private capital for more than 250,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
The World Bank estimates that this scheme could support 850,000 direct and indirect jobs. Women-owned businesses are to receive 30% of the financing, a target that will still have to be measured against the loans actually granted.
In digital infrastructure, the BRIDGE project provides for an initial selection of investors that could contribute at least $156 million in equity. Subsequent steps could bring private investment to $1.1 billion by 2030 for a national open-access fibre-optic network.
The project targets 58 million additional people, which would raise the population covered by affordable broadband from 92 million in 2025 to 150 million in 2030. It also plans to connect 38,800 public schools, 16,900 health facilities and 3,400 local governments, subject to the selection of investors and the execution of the public-private partnership.
In agriculture, the AGROW programme targets one million smallholder farmers and seeks to attract about $220 million from agribusiness companies, in addition to $22 million from certified seed producers. The financing is intended to strengthen access to inputs, digital services and markets.
The total also includes transactions already structured by the International Finance Corporation. The institution says it helped mobilise $1.02 billion for the refinancing of Dangote Industries and $282.5 million for Indorama Fertiliser. Together, these two projects represent a combined annual capacity of 6.8 million tonnes and are expected to improve access to fertiliser for more than ten million smallholder farmers.
The strategy also relies on guarantees from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency to reduce certain risks borne by lenders and investors. Abuja asked on October 12 for greater use of these instruments for infrastructure, but no new guarantee with a quantified value was announced at the end of that meeting.