Domestic financiers are now underwriting a meaningful share of Nigeria’s infrastructure and industrial finance, after InfraCredit guarantees helped 24 firms raise ₦327 billion from local capital markets, and pension funds took on 56% of that volume.
The Private Infrastructure Development Group, a blended-finance institution set up in 2002 and funded by six governments and the International Finance Corporation, has pursued market-building in Nigeria since 2004. Across its lifetime, PIDG has supported almost 300 projects to financial close and mobilised nearly $32 billion of private sector investment into projects valued at more than $50 billion. In 2025 PIDG committed $1 billion of its own capital into 33 projects worth $4.1 billion, with almost $3 billion coming from private investors.
PIDG’s most consequential local intervention has been InfraCredit, created alongside the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority to provide credit enhancement for domestic issuers. An independent study by Steward Redqueen found that InfraCredit guarantees unlocked more than ₦327 billion in domestic issuances across transport, energy, manufacturing and projects such as Lekki Port and the Lagos Free Zone. The effect has been to coax Nigeria’s large pools of institutional savings into infrastructure, shifting pension funds from the periphery to the centre of project finance.
PIDG’s director of sustainable impact, Saeed Ibrahim, frames the institution’s approach as systemic rather than transactional. Rather than closing single deals, PIDG combines guarantees, long-term capital, equity and debt with technical assistance to improve how local financial markets evaluate and absorb infrastructure risk. That strategy, the organisation says, makes domestic financing a viable alternative to raising foreign capital and the foreign exchange exposure it brings.
PIDG also points to proof-of-concept deals that aim to capture more value inside Nigeria. The group worked with Indorama on transactions to expand fertiliser production, and with Robust International to build a processing and manufacturing facility that converts raw seed into higher-value exports. Those projects are held up as examples of how credit enhancement can redirect capital toward productive, value-adding activity.
For PIDG, the policy implication is straightforward: Nigeria’s $3 trillion infrastructure gap is now a question of scale rather than whether the financing model can work. The organisation’s record of mobilising capital domestically suggests a path for scaling, but it will require continued use of guarantees, patient capital and market development to turn institutional savings into long-term infrastructure investment.
