The World Bank Group has successfully helped mobilize $36 billion in private capital for development across India over the past four years, including a substantial $9.6 billion dedicated specifically to supporting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises as part of an intensified strategic effort to spur private sector-led growth and foster robust job creation, with private capital mobilization by the group having surged nearly five-fold from approximately $3 billion in fiscal 2022 to reach $14.5 billion in fiscal 2026 according to Manuel Reyes-Retana, IFC’s division director for South Asia, who noted that this dramatic increase reflects rapidly growing investor confidence and interest in development-linked investments where risk-sharing mechanisms and guarantees provided by the International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency effectively reduce investment barriers and attract private funding from institutional investors around the world who are increasingly drawn to such instruments because they are thoroughly familiar with the World Bank Group’s rigorous underwriting standards, transparent governance practices, and capacity to act as a crucial bridge connecting government development priorities with private investment by strengthening domestic markets and structuring viable projects, while complementing public funding to finance critical initiatives that improve access to affordable credit for India’s vital small business ecosystem, notably through the $436 million Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance programme which supported transformative digital reforms to the Trade Receivables Discounting System platform allowing businesses to raise immediate funds against unpaid invoices rather than waiting for buyers to settle accounts, helping more than 250,000 MSMEs secure faster access to working capital as thirty non-banking financial companies joined the network to expand the lender pool, alongside remarkable achievements such as credit guarantees for women-owned enterprises climbing from 14 percent to 18 percent over a two-year period to mobilize over $1 billion and the establishment of India’s inaugural Green MSME Guarantee Fund benefiting more than 4,000 businesses and directing $40 million into sustainable circular-economy activities, all of which form an integral part of the World Bank Group’s broader Country Partnership Framework for fiscal 2026-31 designed to promote inclusive, sustainable, and job-rich economic expansion in alignment with India’s ambitious Viksit Bharat vision to achieve upper-middle-income status over the coming decade.
