European Bank For Reconstruction Targets $1.5bn Investment In Nigeria In 3 Years

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has unveiled plans to invest at least $1.5 billion in Nigeria over the next three years as it deepens its presence in the country following Nigeria’s admission as a shareholder of the multilateral lender.

The bank, which opened its first Sub Saharan Africa office in Lagos on Friday, disclosed that it has already committed $280 million to projects in Nigeria within less than one year of commencing operations, with investments expected to gather momentum as more bankable projects emerge.

Speaking during a media chat after the official opening of the Lagos office yesterday, EBRD managing director for Sub Saharan Africa, Heike Harmgart, said Nigeria has quickly become one of the bank’s priority markets, adding that the lender remains optimistic about expanding its investment footprint.

She explained that the EBRD only became eligible to finance projects in Nigeria after the country became a shareholder in July 2025 and attained country of operations status in October 2025. “Nigeria only became a shareholder of the EBRD last July and became a country of operations last October.

“So, we can only invest and start developing projects in Nigeria since October 2025. Before October 2025, we could not work in Nigeria because Nigeria was not a shareholder. Since October 2025, we have invested including the trade finance $280 million. Since the beginning of the year, it is $180 million because we did $100 million last year.

“We are very demand-driven, we are working on projects as they come. We don’t have an envelope that says Nigeria we will do X in 2026, or we can maximally do this amount. If we have lots of good projects, we will do lots of investments. We still have to learn a lot as we are new and just opened our office and have only recently started building the team.

“This year is looking good. We are probably looking at around $300 million this year, but we don’t have a ceiling or fixed target as such, but we want to use as many opportunities as possible. Over the next three years, our expectation is that we would do a minimum of total over three years of $1.5 billion. That is an estimate and I hope we do more.

“I also don’t want to be overly optimistic, and I think it’s just good for us. We have the capital as an institution. We have new shareholders that are ambitious. We just had the meeting with the Nigerian Minister of Finance, who wants us to do more.

“He is now representing Nigeria on board, so I think we want to respond. We have capital, of course, we want to work on good projects, and we are willing to take some risks, but we also have to be balancing how much risk we are taking.”