The World Bank has offered an encouraging outlook on Nigeria’s economic trajectory, highlighting a sustained pattern of growth over a three-year period. In its June edition of the Global Economic Prospects, the Bank projected Nigeria’s GDP to grow by 3.6% in 2025, 3.7% in 2026, and 3.8% in 2027 — marking three consecutive years of steady progress.
This positive forecast for Nigeria stands in contrast to a more subdued global economic outlook. The Bank revised its global growth forecast for 2025 downward by 0.4 percentage points to 2.3%, citing rising tariffs and increasing geopolitical uncertainty as major challenges facing the international economy.
The report, released twice yearly, downgraded growth projections for nearly 70% of the world’s economies — including major markets such as the United States, China, and the European Union. These downward revisions also extended to six key emerging market regions. While the World Bank did not predict a global recession, it noted that current projections suggest 2025 could witness the weakest non-recessionary global growth since 2008.
Looking ahead to 2027, the Bank expects global GDP growth to average just 2.5% — the slowest pace of any decade since the 1960s. Global trade growth is also projected to decelerate, falling to 1.8% in 2025, down from 3.4% in 2024 and well below the 5.9% average of the 2000s.
These forecasts assume the continuation of tariffs in effect as of late May, including a 10% U.S. tariff on imports from most countries. They do not account for additional increases proposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump in April, which were delayed until July 9 to allow for negotiations.
The Bank also warned that inflationary pressures are likely to persist. It projects global inflation to rise to 2.9% in 2025 — above pre-pandemic levels — driven by increased tariffs and tight labor markets.
“Risks to the global outlook remain decidedly tilted to the downside,” the report stated. It further warned that an additional 10-percentage-point increase in average U.S. tariffs — met with proportional retaliation — could reduce the 2025 global growth outlook by another 0.5 percentage points.
Despite global headwinds, the Bank’s forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa remains cautiously optimistic. Growth in the region is expected to strengthen to 3.7% in 2025, rising to an average of 4.2% in 2026 and 2027, provided external conditions remain stable, inflation eases, and regional conflicts diminish.
While Sub-Saharan Africa is one of only two regions projected to experience accelerated growth, the forecast remains below the region’s long-term average. It also falls short of the pace needed to significantly reduce extreme poverty. Growth projections for the region were revised downward by 0.4 percentage points for 2025 and 0.2 percentage points for 2026, reflecting deteriorating global conditions, escalating trade barriers, and policy uncertainty.
The report emphasized that regional prospects depend heavily on easing domestic monetary policies to stimulate private consumption and investment. However, commodity-exporting countries in the region remain vulnerable to declining global demand.
Commenting on the broader trends, Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, noted a troubling decline in growth across the developing world. “Outside of Asia, the developing world is becoming a development-free zone,” he said. “Growth has slowed from 6% annually in the 2000s, to 5% in the 2010s, and now to less than 4% in the 2020s.”
Ayhan Kose, Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the World Bank’s Prospects Group, echoed this sentiment. “Emerging and developing economies once benefited greatly from trade integration. Now, they find themselves at the forefront of a global trade conflict,” he said. “The most strategic response is to deepen integration with new partners, implement pro-growth reforms, and bolster fiscal resilience.”
The report concluded by urging developing economies to diversify trade and pursue regional agreements to counteract the negative effects of rising global protectionism.
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