By Francis Ntow, GNA Special Correspondent, Bangkok
Bangkok, Oct. 17, GNA – The World Bank is targeting a fivefold increase in its critical-minerals business, with a new initiative to help resource-rich countries develop local industries, create jobs and retain more economic value from their mineral resources.
World Bank President Ajay Banga announced the initiative on the sidelines of the 2026 International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group (WBG) annual meetings in Bangkok.
It will be implemented over the next five years.
“In critical minerals, we plan to quintuple our business in five years. This week, we launched our first country compacts with Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) partners – to build local industries and keep more jobs and value at home,” Mr Banga stated.
The Bank has identified 20 countries with which it can partner to advance the initiative.
Eight countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Mauritania and Zambia – have already launched their priorities, commitments and measurable targets under the compacts.
The plans outline reforms to modernise mineral licensing and geological data systems, strengthen environmental oversight, expand infrastructure and develop local skills to attract investment and deliver lasting benefits to communities.
With Africa holding significant reserves of minerals essential to the energy transition and the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), including cobalt, copper, lithium and manganese, the initiative offers opportunities to develop domestic processing and manufacturing industries.
Mr Banga said the Bank would work with the identified countries to translate their mineral wealth into tangible development outcomes.
“Different sectors. Different countries. Different solutions. Same objective: advance development and generate jobs. The next phase is execution at scale,” he said.
The critical minerals initiative forms part of a broader World Bank jobs agenda, against projections that about 1.2 billion young people would enter the labour market over the next 10 to 15 years, while only about 400 million jobs would be created, leaving a potential shortfall of 800 million.
Mr Banga said building industries around mineral resources could help narrow the gap by enabling producing countries to move beyond extraction into processing, manufacturing and related services.
He cited infrastructure development as another key driver of investment and job creation, saying the World Bank, in partnership with the European Commission’s Global Gateway and the United States International Development Finance Corporation, launched 52 new corridor projects last year.
This had come up from 20 three years earlier.
The projects seek to link infrastructure with investment and economic opportunities across participating countries.
“The infrastructure connects places. The opportunity grows along the way,” he said.
Mr Banga cited the Lobito Corridor in Central Africa as an example, saying the route, initially developed primarily to transport minerals, was increasingly helping farmers move their produce to markets and supporting the growth of towns and cities along the corridor.
On private capital mobilisation, he said the World Bank had increased the amount mobilised from about US$35 billion in 2022 to US$112 billion, while its total financing had risen to US$230 billion.
Nearly 55 per cent of the financing had gone into infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, health, tourism and value-added manufacturing.
These sectors are considered important for raising productivity and creating jobs.
Mr Banga acknowledged that mobilising commercial capital remained particularly difficult in low-income countries, where the amount stood at US$3 billion.
Nonetheless, mobilisation had increased fourfold in upper-middle-income countries.
He said the next phase would focus on expanding operations and investment opportunities, including strengthening the Bank’s presence in New York, Frankfurt, Milan and Tokyo to develop project pipelines and engage investors.
“That means meeting private-sector clients where they invest and make decisions. But stronger pipelines are only part of the answer,” he said.
Mr Banga said six multilateral development banks were also developing common approaches to assess, document, package and transfer investments, thus enabling projects initially financed by development institutions to attract other long-term investors.
“Pension funds, insurers, and sovereign wealth funds manage enormous pools of long-term capital looking for long-term investments. We are making the introduction,” he said.
Reflecting on the global challenges that prompted the establishment of the World Bank in 1944, Mr Banga said the world faced a new set of challenges that required collective action to expand economic opportunities.
“The jobs gap is a projection. It does not have to be our future. We have begun to show what this model can deliver. Now we must give it the scale and pace the next generation demands. That future is ours to build. Let us build,” he said.
GNA
Edited by Beatrice Asamani Savage
Reporter: Francis Ntow