Think of this: In a small, rural community a mother receives a mobile alert that her monthly cash transfer has arrived just in time to buy school supplies and food. Down the road, the local council approves a small grant to build a footbridge that will connect the community to markets, schools, and a clinic.
Continue reading
The idea behind debt-for-development swaps is straightforward: A country exchanges its expensive debt for cheaper debt, often supported by a credit enhancement like a guarantee, and then redirects the savings into development spending.
Continue readingOperational procurement is a crucial part of the World Bank’s efforts to become a Better Bank and fulfill our mission. Effective procurement enables our clients to achieve value for money, transparency, efficiency, and fairness in Bank-financed operations. By setting quality standards in international procurement, we respond to our clients’ needs by driving market innovation, attracting top suppliers, expanding options, and fostering global competition to deliver development outcomes with speed.
Starting March 1, 2025, the World Bank will introduce a range of measures aimed at delivering better outcomes in procurement under Investment Project Financing. These new requirements reflect extensive feedback from our clients and the business community and demonstrate our commitment to modern procurement practices. First, we will require a 50 percent minimum quality weighting for most internationally competitive procurement. Second, for contracts with an estimated value over $10 million, early market engagement will be an integrated part of our processes to attract high-caliber bidders and optimize procurement strategies. Third, we will collaborate with clients to aggregate smaller contracts into larger packages and offer direct payment options to reduce supplier payment risks.
Training programs on these new approaches will be provided to clients and World Bank staff. We will also increase our support, oversight, and scrutiny of project procurement strategies, market engagement approaches, rated criteria, quality weightings, and related procurement actions.
To align with this new mandate and to support implementation, we have published:
We look forward to working together and remain committed to modern, fair, and transparent procurement processes that lead to better development outcomes for people in our client countries.
On Wednesday, December 11 at 9:00 a.m. ET, we will host our FY 2025 First Quarter Business Forecast and Partner Update webinar.
You can click here to register.
Submitting Business Forecast Questions
Join World Bank President Ajay Banga and Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) President Ilan Goldfajn for an insightful discussion about strategic and collaborative approaches in a world faced with complex challenges.
Strengthening Collaboration to Maximize Development Impact
Thursday, August 31
10:00-10:30 am EDT (local time)
Nowhere is the impact of recent crises – the lingering economic consequences of COVID-19 
and the global spillover effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine – being felt more acutely than in the developing world. People in poor countries are struggling to cope with higher food and fuel prices and unsustainable debt, while schoolchildren are still suffering from learning loss caused by the pandemic. In many places, economic growth has stalled.
Webinar: How to Work with USAID 101
Join USAID’s Industry Liaison Team on January 26 at 10:30am ET for a How to Work with USAID webinar. Learn about USAID’s operational framework, how to find funding opportunities, as well as how to engage with the Agency. Additionally, you’ll learn about WorkwithUSAID.org, which is a free resource hub that empowers partners with the knowledge and networks to navigate how to work with USAID. Registration details here.
Find information on additional upcoming events on WorkwithUSAID.org.
Netherlands for the World Bank 
You must be logged in to post a comment.