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From Uche Usim, Washington DC
World Bank Group President, Ajay Banga, has announced an expansion in the institution’s annual financing to $119 billion, up from $107 billion two years ago.
He said the effort highlights the Bank’s renewed drive to deliver faster, smarter and more impactful development results across emerging economies.
Speaking at the 2025 Annual Meetings Plenary in Washington, Banga said the growth in financing reflects the World Bank’s transformation into a more agile and results-driven institution, committed to tackling global challenges through investment, partnership, and job creation.
“In just two years, our annual financing grew from $107 billion to $119 billion,” Banga declared. “That scale is translating into real impact. Development is not charity, it’s strategy.”
The World Bank’s private capital mobilisation also surged sharply, from $47 billion to $67 billion, bringing total commitments, including mobilised capital, to $186 billion.
The Bank additionally raised $79 billion from private investors through bond issuances, signaling strong market confidence in its reformed development model.
“This growth is not just about bigger numbers. It reflects sharper focus, faster delivery, and a shift in mindset, treating development as the outcome of jobs created, not just projects approved.”
He highlighted that the new momentum is powered by deep institutional reforms, financial innovation, and closer alignment across the World Bank Group’s entities, IDA, IBRD, IFC, MIGA, and ICSID.
“Through new instruments and optimization, we expanded our financial capacity by about $100 billion,” he said. “We’re moving with more speed, simplicity, and substance, cutting project approval times, unifying our leadership structure, and focusing resources on measurable outcomes.”
According to Banga, project approval times have been reduced from 19 months to 12, with some now cleared in under 30 days. Leadership consolidation across 40 country offices ensures clients have a single point of contact, while the World Bank’s Knowledge Bank is being unified to replicate proven solutions at scale.
He noted that 153 internal metrics have been streamlined into a single corporate scorecard with 22 outcome indicators, “a system built to measure what matters.”
“This transformation is about making every dollar work harder, faster, and more.
“It’s about channeling resources into programs that deliver real opportunities, especially jobs”, Banga noted.
Central to the Bank’s agenda is a jobs-first growth strategy, grounded in three pillars: building foundational infrastructure, ensuring sound policies and governance, and mobilising private capital at scale.
“Most jobs, nearly 90 percent, ultimately come from the private sector. But private investment can only thrive where governments build the right foundations and clear the way for entrepreneurship”, he added.
To that end, the Bank is expanding partnerships with multilateral development banks to reduce duplication and scale co-financing. Its MDB co-financing platform now has a pipeline of 175 projects, with 22 already financed, worth $23 billion.
Banga also announced a major pipeline of initiatives in high-growth sectors, including energy, healthcare, agribusiness, tourism, and value-added manufacturing.
In the energy sector, Mission 300 aims to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, using a mix of renewable and conventional sources, plus renewed technical support for nuclear energy, in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“We’re pursuing accessibility, affordability, and reliability. “Electricity powers productivity and productivity powers jobs”, he said.
In healthcare, the Bank is targeting 1.5 billion people with improved access to essential services, supported by an upcoming summit in Tokyo. Indonesia’s innovative model of guaranteeing citizens annual primary care visits has already become a case study for replication.
Agriculture is another major focus. The AgriConnect initiative is helping farmers move from subsistence to surplus, supported by a commitment to double financing to $9 billion annually and mobilize an additional $5 billion.
“We’re building full ecosystems around farmers, linking them to finance, markets, and technology.
“That’s how smallholders become entrepreneurs”, he explained.
A forthcoming minerals and mining strategy will further help developing nations move beyond raw extraction to local processing and manufacturing, keeping “more value and more jobs at home.”
Banga emphasised that expanding financial firepower is only half the story. The real test, he said, lies in using those resources to build “smart development”, projects that are fiscally sound, resilient, and designed to endure.
“Nearly half of our financing now carries climate co-benefits, with resilience accounting for 43 percent of the public sector portfolio,” he noted. “Smart development means roads that withstand floods, schools that stay open in extreme heat, and farms that survive droughts.”
The World Bank’s new financing model also includes tools such as guarantees, local-currency lending, and a groundbreaking “originate-to-distribute” framework that packages loans into investable products for institutional investors. The first transaction, $510 million in IFC loans, was recently completed with strong demand.
“Each step lowers risk, boosts confidence, and helps meet private capital halfway.
“Our goal is to triple MIGA’s guarantee business by 2030 and deepen co-financing with partners”, he added.
Banga closed his address by tying the Bank’s growing financing capacity directly to human impact:
“Since 2024, our efforts have helped 20 million farmers access new markets, 60 million people gain electricity, 70 million get education or skills, and 300 million benefit from health and nutrition services,” he said.
“Every number tells a story of opportunity. When a school leads to a skill, when a road leads to a market, when a clinic keeps someone healthy enough to work, that’s development done right. That’s how we turn investment into impact.”
