The World Bank Group has committed annual financing of USD 8-10 billion to India over the next five years under a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF), aimed at accelerating economic growth, creating jobs and supporting the country’s long-term vision of becoming a developed nation.
The new framework, unveiled on Friday, aligns closely with India’s Viksit Bharat agenda and seeks to combine public investment with private capital while drawing on the World Bank Group’s global expertise to deliver development outcomes at scale.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman welcomed the partnership, describing it as a collaboration that goes beyond funding to include knowledge sharing, technical assistance and the exchange of global best practices. She underscored the importance of leveraging public funds to mobilise private investment and generate employment across both rural and urban India.
At the core of the new partnership is private sector-led job creation, a priority as nearly 12 million young people enter India’s labour market each year. The framework aims to unlock private investment in sectors with high employment potential, ensuring growth translates into widespread economic opportunity.
The World Bank Group’s global jobs strategy underpinning the CPF is built on three pillars: investment in critical physical and human infrastructure; strengthening a predictable, business-friendly regulatory environment; and deploying risk-management tools to help private investment scale sustainably.
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Five sectors have been identified as key drivers of job creation: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, healthcare, tourism and value-added manufacturing. These sectors are expected to generate locally relevant employment while supporting productivity and resilience.
The partnership focuses on four strategic outcomes, boosting rural prosperity and resilience, supporting urban transformation and liveable cities, investing in people while strengthening energy security and core infrastructure, and enhancing overall economic resilience.
It also prioritises expanding opportunities for youth and women, upgrading skills, reducing barriers for small and medium enterprises, and improving access to finance.
India remains the World Bank Group’s largest client globally, with significant ongoing commitments across infrastructure, development finance and risk guarantees. The new CPF builds on a year-long collaboration to rework the partnership model, incorporating reforms undertaken by the World Bank Group since 2023 to become faster, simpler and more impact-oriented.
With India positioned as a key engine of global growth, the partnership seeks to convert sustained expansion into durable employment and long-term prosperity on the road to Viksit Bharat by 2047.
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