By The World Bank Group mobilized a record $112 billion in private capital for developing economies in fiscal 2026, more than tripling the amount raised four years earlier, as it expanded efforts to attract private investment alongside its own financing.
The figure, announced by the World Bank on Thursday, compares with $35 billion in private capital mobilization in fiscal 2022. Combined with the group’s own financing, total financing and mobilization in developing economies exceeded $200 billion in fiscal 2026, the World Bank said.
The increase comes as developing countries face large financing needs for infrastructure, energy, healthcare and other sectors while governments seek to attract private investment to supplement limited public resources.
The World Bank said the increase in private capital mobilization was broad-based across income groups. Mobilization in lower-middle-income countries rose to $37 billion in fiscal 2026 from $14 billion in fiscal 2022, while upper-middle-income countries saw it increase to $50 billion from $12 billion.
In low-income countries, where the World Bank said attracting private investment remains particularly difficult, private capital mobilization held at about $3 billion.
Africa recorded one of the largest regional increases. Private capital mobilization on the continent rose to approximately $22 billion in fiscal 2026 from about $9 billion in fiscal 2022, an increase of nearly 150%, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank said the increase reflected changes introduced over the past three years to make its work with the private sector faster and simpler and to bring its public- and private-sector operations closer together.
The institution has introduced a single point of contact for its public- and private-sector work in individual countries and has begun developing integrated strategies based on countries’ development priorities.
World Bank President Ajay Banga has also pointed to efforts to reduce the time required to approve projects and strengthen cooperation across the institution.
Reuters reported that average project approval times had been reduced to about nine months from a year or more, while about 40% of World Bank lending in the previous fiscal year went to infrastructure.
The World Bank said it had also expanded the financial tools available to investors, including guarantees, local-currency financing and equity instruments, while working to address foreign-exchange risks that can deter investment in developing economies.
The World Bank Group issued more than $25 billion in guarantees in fiscal 2026, exceeding its target of $20 billion in annual issuance by 2030 four years ahead of schedule, the institution said.
Much of the increase was driven by the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform, created in 2024 to provide governments and investors with a single access point for guarantee products across the institution.
Guarantees can help reduce risks for private investors by providing protection against certain financial or political risks associated with projects in developing markets.
The World Bank has increasingly used such instruments to encourage commercial financing for infrastructure and other projects that might otherwise struggle to attract private capital.
The institution said it was also working to improve the regulatory and business environments in developing countries, address foreign-exchange constraints and create ways for institutional investors to participate at greater scale.
The World Bank’s Private Sector Investment Lab has contributed to that work by identifying barriers that can discourage investment in developing economies and proposing measures to address them, the institution said.
The group’s strategy is increasingly focused on sectors that can support investment and employment, including infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, healthcare, tourism and value-added manufacturing.
In fiscal 2026, 55% of the World Bank Group’s total financing, including its own financing and capital mobilized from private investors, went to those sectors, according to the institution.
The World Bank is also developing an “originate-to-distribute” approach intended to package investments in ways that can make them easier for institutional investors to purchase at scale.
The aim is to connect large pools of long-term institutional capital with investment opportunities in developing economies, potentially broadening the range of investors participating in World Bank-supported projects.
For African economies, the increase in private capital mobilization comes amid significant infrastructure and investment requirements.
The World Bank has been using guarantees and blended-finance structures to reduce risks and attract commercial lenders and institutional investors to projects in areas including energy, transport, water and manufacturing.
For example, the World Bank is supporting South Africa’s Credit Guarantee Vehicle, designed to reduce risks for private investors in infrastructure projects involving electricity, water, freight transport, education and healthcare.
The institution estimates that the programme could mobilize about $10 billion over 10 years.
The World Bank’s latest figures highlight a broader shift in development finance toward using public and multilateral funding to attract additional private investment.
While private capital mobilization increased sharply overall, the relatively unchanged figure for low-income countries underscores the continuing difficulty of attracting commercial investment to markets where perceived risks remain high.
The World Bank said it plans to build on the fiscal 2026 results by expanding the number and types of investors able to participate in developing-country projects and by increasing the amount of capital mobilized from different sources.
