Its 2026–2032 country strategy targets electricity access for 32 million Nigerians, broadband for another 58 million and $4.1bn in private capital. The deeper question is whether infrastructure can become the bridge between Nigeria’s digital ambitions, industrialisation and mass employment.
The World Bank has unveiled an ambitious new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Nigeria covering 2026 to 2032, placing electricity, broadband, agriculture, private capital and job creation at the centre of its development strategy. The framework targets 32 million Nigerians gaining access to electricity, 58 million additional people using broadband internet, and 9.5 million farmers benefiting from interventions designed to improve production, value addition and market access. It also seeks to mobilise $4.1bn in private capital for infrastructure and agribusiness.
The framework was presented by the World Bank’s Acting Country Director for Nigeria, Taimur Samad, in Lagos during the Industrialisation & Competitiveness Forum organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. Its central proposition is that Nigeria’s development challenge cannot be addressed simply by increasing public expenditure. Instead, the World Bank intends to concentrate its resources on areas where infrastructure, private investment, human capital and institutional reform can reinforce one another to generate measurable economic outcomes.
The strategy identifies four broad ambitions: creating more and better private-sector jobs, improving competitiveness and growth, unlocking a more productive and healthier population, building resilience among people and ecosystems, and maximising private capital for infrastructure and agribusiness. In practical terms, that means greater attention to distributed renewable energy, broadband infrastructure, finance for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural value chains.
From infrastructure deficit to economic opportunity
The headline electricity target is substantial. The framework aims to provide 32 million people with electricity by 2032, supported by a $750m World Bank programme and a $200m IFC facility for distributed renewable energy. This is more than an energy-access intervention. Electricity is a basic input into almost every productive activity, from manufacturing and agriculture to digital services and small businesses.
The same logic explains the framework’s emphasis on broadband. The World Bank aims to bring 58 million additional people into broadband use, supported by a $500m programme for resilient digital infrastructure. This places digital connectivity alongside electricity as a foundational component of Nigeria’s next phase of economic development.
For an economy increasingly dependent on fintech, e-commerce, digital services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the creator economy, broadband is no longer simply a communications service. It is increasingly part of the productive infrastructure of the economy.
The significance of putting electricity and broadband in the same development framework should therefore not be underestimated. Nigeria’s digital economy cannot operate at scale without reliable physical infrastructure, just as traditional industry cannot become competitive without energy and transport. The distinction between the “digital economy” and the wider economy is becoming progressively less useful because digital technology is being embedded into agriculture, finance, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare and government.
The $4.1bn question
Perhaps the most consequential element of the CPF is not the amount the World Bank itself intends to spend, but the amount of private capital it hopes to mobilise: $4.1bn.
The framework explicitly places private-sector-led growth at the centre of the strategy. Under its competitiveness and growth objective, the World Bank targets a 30 per cent increase in the non-oil revenue-to-GDP ratio, $6bn in private capital enabled and an additional 250,000 SMEs using financial services.
This represents an important shift in development thinking. The World Bank is effectively acknowledging that Nigeria’s infrastructure and development requirements are too large to be financed through government budgets and development assistance alone. Public institutions can provide catalytic capital, guarantees, technical expertise and institutional frameworks, but sustainable infrastructure expansion requires commercial capital to participate.
The challenge is that private capital does not move simply because a country has a financing need. Investors require bankable projects, predictable regulation, credible revenue models, appropriate risk allocation and sufficient protection against political, currency and operational risks. The CPF’s emphasis on improving the business environment and mobilising private capital therefore matters as much as the headline financial commitments.
The digital economy gets a seat at the development table
For BrandiQ readers, perhaps the most strategically important element of the framework is the explicit recognition of digital transformation as one of the pathways to the targeted outcomes.
The proposed broadband investment could become an important foundation for Nigeria’s technology ecosystem. More connectivity means a potentially larger market for fintech, e-commerce, digital media, online education, software, artificial intelligence and creator-led businesses. But connectivity by itself does not create a digital economy.
The real economic dividend emerges when connectivity is combined with skills, affordable devices, digital financial services, reliable electricity, data infrastructure, entrepreneurship and markets. A connected population that lacks purchasing power, digital skills or productive opportunities will generate considerably less economic value than a population able to use connectivity to create businesses, access markets and acquire knowledge.
This is why the World Bank’s decision to place broadband alongside MSME finance, skills development, education, energy and private-sector growth is significant. It treats digital infrastructure less as an isolated technology project and more as part of an economic system.
Agriculture is being repositioned as a value chain
Agriculture is another major pillar. The CPF targets 9.5 million farmers through activities intended to improve production, value addition and market linkages, with a $500m pipeline programme for sustainable agricultural value chains.
The emphasis on value addition is particularly important. Increasing agricultural production without improving storage, processing, transportation, finance and market access can leave farmers trapped in low-value activities. The objective is therefore not simply to produce more crops but to connect farmers to the wider commercial ecosystem surrounding agriculture.
Digital technology could become an important part of this transformation. Market information, digital payments, agricultural finance, logistics platforms, remote sensing and data-driven production systems can reduce information and transaction costs. But once again, technology can amplify an efficient system; it cannot substitute for roads, electricity, storage facilities, security and functioning markets.
Human capital remains the missing multiplier
The CPF’s infrastructure ambitions are accompanied by substantial human-capital targets. The World Bank plans to reach 40 million beneficiaries through quality health, nutrition and population services, support 19.4 million students with better education, and achieve an eight-percentage-point reduction in the proportion of children under five suffering from stunting.
It also targets 41 million additional beneficiaries of social safety-net programmes and 11.7 million people with enhanced resilience to climate risks. These targets reveal an important feature of the strategy: infrastructure is being treated as necessary but insufficient. Electricity and broadband can expand economic opportunity, but people need the health, education, skills and financial capacity to exploit that opportunity.
For Nigeria’s technology ambitions, this becomes particularly important. Artificial intelligence and digital transformation are increasing the premium on human capital. The countries that gain the most from AI will not necessarily be those that simply acquire the most computing infrastructure; they will be those capable of combining technology with people who can design, manage, regulate and apply it productively.
A larger portfolio, fewer projects
The World Bank is also changing how it intends to deploy its resources. The new framework says it will concentrate support on fewer areas capable of producing large-scale and measurable results.
That approach is already reflected in the institution’s portfolio. The World Bank currently has an active $15.9bn portfolio involving 30 projects in Nigeria, with two-thirds implemented through national programmes at state level and half using results-based financing.
The presentation also noted that the average loan size increased from $415m in 2021 to $580m in 2025, while the number of projects declined from 36 to 30.
The message is clear: fewer, larger and potentially more transformative interventions are replacing a more fragmented approach. The World Bank also intends to deepen collaboration among the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, creating a more integrated approach to development finance.
BrandiQ Analysis: Nigeria’s infrastructure problem is becoming a digital-economy problem
The World Bank’s strategy deserves attention beyond the conventional development-finance narrative because it captures something increasingly important about Nigeria’s economic future: the country’s infrastructure deficit and its digital-economy deficit are becoming the same problem.
A fintech company cannot scale reliably without electricity and connectivity. An AI business requires broadband, cloud infrastructure and computing capacity. An e-commerce platform needs digital payments but also warehouses, roads and delivery networks. A creator economy requires connectivity, devices and reliable power. A modern agricultural value chain needs physical logistics alongside digital marketplaces and data.
In other words, Nigeria cannot build a large digital economy by investing only in “technology”. It must build the infrastructure ecosystem that makes technology economically productive.
This also places a greater burden on government policy. Broadband targets are useful, but the quality and affordability of connectivity will matter. Electricity targets are important, but reliability and productive use will matter. Private-capital targets are welcome, but the quality of the investment – whether it creates productive capacity, jobs and technology transfer – will matter more than the headline amount.
There is also an important connection with Nigeria’s ambition to build a much larger economy. If the country is serious about expanding its economic base, the World Bank’s framework points towards a model in which infrastructure becomes an enabler of private-sector productivity rather than simply an item of government expenditure. That distinction is fundamental.
The Execution Test
The scale of the targets is impressive, but development strategies ultimately live or die in implementation. Connecting 32 million people to electricity and 58 million to broadband requires more than funding. It requires coordination among federal and state governments, regulators, infrastructure companies, financial institutions and communities.
The same applies to the $4.1bn private-capital target. Investors must see viable opportunities rather than development aspirations. Projects must be structured, risks allocated and returns made sufficiently predictable for private capital to participate.
The CPF itself identifies macroeconomic stability and governance, the business-enabling environment, early childhood development, social protection, human capital and skills, digital transformation, power and energy access, climate resilience, agriculture and access to finance as pathways towards its outcomes.
That list is revealing because it demonstrates how interconnected Nigeria’s development constraints have become. Electricity affects manufacturing. Broadband affects digital services. Skills affect technology adoption. Finance affects SMEs. Agriculture affects food security. Governance affects investment. Infrastructure affects virtually everything.
The BrandiQ Verdict
The World Bank’s 2026-2032 framework is more than another development programme. It is a bet that Nigeria can move from an economy constrained by infrastructure deficits towards one in which electricity, broadband, human capital and private capital reinforce one another to create productive growth.
The most important target may therefore not be the 32 million people who will gain electricity, or even the 58 million expected to gain broadband. It is whether those connections become economic connections – linking people to jobs, businesses to finance, farmers to markets, entrepreneurs to customers and Nigerian companies to the global digital economy.
If that happens, the World Bank’s infrastructure investment could become something considerably larger than an access programme. It could help provide the physical and financial architecture for Nigeria’s next economic model.
If it does not, Nigeria may simply end up with more infrastructure without enough productivity to transform it into prosperity.
