World Bank Courts Private Financing Amid Global Debt Burden

The World Bank said on Thursday that it had attracted $112 billion of private capital in 2026, a 62 percent increase from last year, as the development organization has increasingly turned to private sector investors to help finance projects in developing countries.The effort to make the World Bank a magnet for private investment has been a priority for its president, Ajay Banga.The organization has been trying to accelerate its poverty reduction and development goals at a time when poor countries facing tight budget constraints and high interest rates are struggling to build new roads and housing.The initiative was originally intended to raise trillions of dollars needed to combat climate change.

But with President Trump leading the United States, which is the bank’s largest shareholder, Mr.Banga has been shifting the organization’s ambitions toward infrastructure and job creation.The private investment total has nearly tripled over the last three years since Mr.

Banga, who was appointed by former President Joseph R.Biden Jr., assumed leadership of the bank.“If you’re a rich country or a developing country, everybody’s got fiscal challenges,” Mr.

Banga said in an interview at his office at the World Bank in Washington.“The old idea of thinking that public coffers, philanthropic coffers, in some way will fund this development challenge in the world — whether it is education or energy or resilient infrastructure or health care, whichever subscription of it you care about — there’s just too many zeros attached to that demand.”He added: “You’re not going to get this without the private sector.”The World Bank has rapidly expanded private investment by tapping pension funds and companies like Nestlé and General Motors, but also asset managers such as BlackRock and local investors and financial institutions in countries around the world.

Mr.Banga said that the bank has been expanding its political risk insurance offerings, taking on more ...