Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank
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KRISZTIAN BOCSI
India and the World Bank group on Friday announced a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) to help accelerate India’s next phase of growth and support its vision of Viksit Bharat.
This was announced when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met the World Bank group President Ajay Banga here. Acknowledging CPF aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat, Sitharaman said: “Leveraging public funds with private capital, creating more jobs across rural and urban India and enriching projects with the Bank Group’s global knowledge will be key to achieving sustainable impact at both speed and scale.” She also stated that stated that India looks forward to the roll out of the CPF over the next five years and the sustainable impact it would lead to.
Calling India is one of the key engines of global growth today, Banga said: “Our strategic partnership aims to help India grow even faster on its path toward Viksit Bharat by 204. Creating more jobs is at the core of our work. This partnership brings together financing, reforms and private sector investment to turn growth into opportunity for millions of Indians.”
In a statement, the multilateral agency said that its global jobs strategy rests on three pillars- investing in critical infrastructure—both physical and human, strengthening a business-friendly environment through predictable laws, rules and regulations and deploying risk-management tools to help private investment scale. This approach focuses on five sectors that generate locally relevant jobs at scale: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, health care, tourism and value-added manufacturing.
“The new India–World Bank Group strategic partnership applies this global jobs strategy in India and supports it with $8–10 billion in annual financing over the next five years, using the Bank Group’s full range of instruments and expertise, to create jobs and mobilise private sector capital at scale,” it said.
Further, the partnership prioritises private sector-led job creation by upgrading skills, reducing barriers for small and medium enterprises, and expanding opportunities—particularly for youth and women. It focuses on four strategic outcomes. These include boosting rural prosperity and resilience, supporting urban transformation and livable cities, investing in people and strengthening energy security, core infrastructure and resilience.
The statement also mentioned that implementation of the new partnership framework will begin immediately, including through ongoing projects. One such project is supporting Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs. Under this an $830 million loan is provided to work with the private sector to upgrade India’s network of Industrial Training Institutes and help more than one million young people—especially young women—gain job-ready skills. Another one is the Maharashtra Project on Resilient Agriculture (Phase II. This $490 million project aims to enhance crop productivity and strengthen resilience by adopting digital technology in precision farming practices.
Published on January 30, 2026
