World Bank President, Ajay Banga, has said Nigeria is expected to add about 130 million people by 2050.

He described the coming decades as a defining moment for developing nations.

Speaking at the 2025 Annual Meetings Plenary of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund, Banga said the surge would make Nigeria one of the most populous nations in the world, joining the ranks of countries whose demographic weight will determine the future of the global economy.

“We are living through one of the great demographic shifts in human history,” he said.

“By 2050, more than 85 percent of the world’s population will live in countries we call developing today. The pace of growth is most staggering in Africa, which will be home to one in four people on the planet.”

He warned that while the continent’s expanding youth population could become an engine of global growth, the lack of opportunities could just as easily fuel instability, unrest, and mass migration.

According to him, in the next 10 to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people will enter the global workforce competing for roughly 400 million jobs, leaving a vast employment gap.

“Four young people will step into the global workforce every second over the next ten years,” he said.

“So, in the time it takes to deliver these remarks, tens of thousands will cross that threshold—full of ambition, impatient for opportunity.”

Banga said this reality makes job creation central to every country’s development and security strategy.

“A job is more than a paycheck. It is purpose and dignity, the anchor that holds families steady and the glue that keeps societies together,” he stated.

He noted that the World Bank is refocusing its efforts to meet this challenge through speed, simplicity, and substance in its operations.

Project approval times have been shortened, leadership structures consolidated, and financial capacity expanded by about $100 billion to support faster and broader development impact.

“Our mission is jobs,” he said. “Most jobs—nearly 90 percent—come from the private sector, but they don’t all begin there. Entrepreneurs need the right conditions to start, grow, and hire. Those conditions don’t happen by accident.”

Banga outlined a three-pillar strategy for growth that includes public investment in human and physical infrastructure such as roads, ports, education, and energy; sound economic management and transparent policies; and finally, mobilising private capital through instruments like guarantees, equity, and risk insurance.

He highlighted key initiatives aimed at translating these principles into results, including Mission 300, which seeks to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030, and AgriConnect, which helps smallholder farmers move from subsistence to surplus through financing, market access, and digital tools.

The World Bank, he said, is also finalising a minerals and mining strategy to help African countries shift from raw material exports to local processing and manufacturing.

“These are not aid-dependent sectors,” he said. “They are engines of growth—capable of generating locally relevant jobs without displacing work from developed economies.”

Banga emphasized that the Bank’s development focus now centers on resilience, fiscal soundness, and institutional trust. Nearly half of its recent financing, he revealed, qualified as having climate co-benefits.

“When we build a road that connects a manufacturer to a market and it is built to withstand floods, that is counted,” he said. “When we help farmers use drought-resistant seeds and drip irrigation to guard against dry spells, that is counted.”

He said the demographic surge in countries like Nigeria presents both a challenge and an opportunity for global stability and prosperity. “These young people—with their energy and ideas—will define the next century,” Banga said. “With the right investments focused not on need but on opportunity, we can unlock a powerful engine of global growth.” (The Nation)