World Bank Committed $2.5 Billion into Nigeria’s Infrastructure, Education, Healthcare Sectors in 5 Years

• Mobilised $5bn private capital into country in 2025 

•Digital reforms, transparency needed to unlock SME procurement, BPP, LCCI say

Nume Ekeghe and Dike Onwuamaeze

The World Bank Group said it has committed over $2.5 billion to Nigerian suppliers over the past five years, funding projects across infrastructure, healthcare, and education.

Equally, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) said it mobilised $5 billion in private capital last year to support businesses and create jobs in the country.

The disclosures were made at a seminar focused on procurement and investment opportunities under projects financed by the World Bank Group, in Lagos, yesterday.

The seminar, organised by the World Bank Group, aimed to showcase procurement and investment opportunities under its projects, while promoting SME participation, transparency, and capacity building in public procurement across sub-Saharan Africa, encouraging businesses both in Nigeria and beyond to compete for available contracts.

Also speaking at the seminar, the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Chinyere Almona, noted that the high cost of finance was among the bottlenecks hindering SMEs’ participation in the procurement process. Almona said that it was often difficult for banks to grant facilities to SMEs.

 Vice President, Operations Policy and Country Services (OPCS), World Bank, Ms. Gallina Andronova Vincelette, highlighted the scale of opportunities available to local companies.

She said: “Putting this in perspective for Nigeria, over the past five years, Nigeria-based suppliers have been awarded more than 6,800 World Bank–financed contracts, which is a total value of $2.5 billion.

“More than 60 per cent of these awards have gone to the delivery of civil works, including roads, bridges, hospitals and school construction.

“There are also opportunities not only in Nigeria, but across Africa, where Nigerian companies can participate. Looking more broadly across Africa, over the same five-year period, World Bank–financed projects have awarded more than 9,000 contracts with a total value of close to $45 billion, underscoring the scale and depth of opportunities across the region.”

Echoing the bank’s commitment, the Director for Central Africa and Nigeria, Ms. Dahlia Khalifa, IFC said: “IFC is very committed to Nigeria. We’ve been here for decades. We hope to be here for decades and decades further, being as helpful and supportive to the development of Nigeria, achieving its objectives and keeping our eye on that North Star, which is jobs.

“Of course, it is the private sector which is key to completely embrace and understand that, and therefore what we do is critical right now.

“We have a portfolio in Nigeria, which is $1.3 billion, which is how much we have funded from our own balance sheet, and again, that’s not all talked about, how much we crowded in in terms of mobilisation using multiples of this. “In fact, last year alone, we brought about $5 billion to Nigeria, and that is the case we have been seeing for the past three or four years.

“But that’s not enough. Our ambition is much higher. Our ambition is to mobilise as much private capital to Nigeria as possible to help you grow your businesses and help create as many jobs as possible.”

In his opening remarks, Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu, underscored the significance of the Bank’s engagement with Nigeria.

He said: “And just last week, the Country Director, about 10 days ago, made a presentation in the National Economic Council, which is chaired by the Vice President and had all the governors.

“And he spoke about the portfolio of over $17 billion. We appreciate, again, the size of this portfolio, even though we believe our size, we are going to do more, we can do more.

“And yet again today, we are here with a visiting team led by the Vice President of Operations Policy, which is first procurement for Nigeria in Nigeria, but very importantly for the World Bank, as I was told in a private chat, to begin to encourage Nigerian companies, Nigerian entrepreneurs, Nigerian service providers, to look at the World Bank proposal across the world and as an entry and step into procurement worldwide.

“I think that is amazing. We, our President, believe in our capacity. And our entrepreneurs are celebrated everywhere. So we believe our construction companies, our artisans, our service providers, have the ability to compete globally. And this opportunity that will be provided by the Bank is quite well appreciated.”

Speaking further, Almona said: “The other thing I consider a bottleneck is the visibility of the procurement contracts, as most people do not know when they are available for bidding.

“But now I have seen that there is a portal people can visit to know what is available.”

She also said the changes introduced by the World Bank in 2025 in the procurement process have taken care of some of the impediments, which showed that the bank is responsive from your communities.

“The importance of the changes that have been made is that there is available a forum to be constantly engaged with and sensitise people so that they know where to look for what is available,’ Almona added.

Participating in the panel discussion, the Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Nigeria, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, said the narrative was changing currently on the perception of public procurement in Nigeria from transactional to strategic operational engagement.

Adedokun said: “Historically, there has been mistrust about public sector procurement that has been seen as transactional.

“But currently the narrative is changing to making procurement strategic, tactical, and operational. This means that we have identified skills and capacity in the public sector to align them with the private sector through certain initiatives.

“We are now positioning public procurement as an enabler where we can tell the private sector that we are coming clean and being transparent.”

He said one of the things the BPP was doing was a  program titled, ‘Sustainable Procurement Environment and Social Standard Enhancement Project.”

This is a combination of the use of technology to drive procurement and provide real-time capacity building for public sector procurement practitioners.

The BPP boss said one of the reasons firms in the private sector miss procurement opportunities is that their officials do not understand the public procurement process.

“So we are saying let’s open up the capacity building where there could be a nexus between the private and public sectors.

“We are going digital in order to remove human interference to a manageable level. We are digitalising and making procurement available in the country and all over the world. Job opportunities must be put online and I am glad the World Bank showed us its website on procurement, which is going to be our model.”

He remarked that another critical matter is the issue of visibility, adding that this is being addressed as all ministries, departments, and agencies have been instructed to maintain a functional website in 2026.