Open Letter to IFC

The Spring Meetings are discussing how to scale private energy investment across Sub-Saharan Africa. Blended finance — guarantees, equity, political risk insurance — is the proposed mechanism. Nigeria’s power sector is the most documented test case for that model.

The World Bank Group has been at the table in Nigeria’s power sector since 2001. IFC led the equity investment in Azura-Edo. MIGA insured the gas supply infrastructure. The Bank provided a $237 million guarantee on the power purchase agreement. The Bank simultaneously advised the Nigerian government on the policy framework governing all of them.

Nigeria’s combined annual obligation under the Azura power purchase agreement and the Calabar gas supply agreement is approximately $480 million per year. As the naira has depreciated from ₦305 to over ₦1,500 per dollar since financial close, the naira cost has quintupled. The sector financial deficit at project close was $1 billion. A further $750 million in IDA lending was approved in 2020 to stabilise the sector.

Today’s open letter to IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop asks five questions about the advisory-creditor conflict this structure creates — and what it means for the proposed merger of the Bank, IFC, and MIGA. An IFC response, submitted in March 2026, has not been received.