Assessing the World Bank’s Proposed Revision of Its Procurement Guidelines

The World Bank Group, which commits tens of billions of dollars to funding projects in the developing world every year, is revising its procurement guidelines. The Bank's procurement guidelines are intended to ensure that procurements on Bank-financed projects are carried out efficiently and without corruption. As a practical matter, because of the billions of dollars in projects supported by the Bank's financing, the Bank's guidelines help shape procurement practices across the developing world, and their revision marks an important opportunity to improve procurement practices worldwide. In this article, the authors recommend changes to the guidelines to improve procurement, and reduce the potential for corruption, in projects funded by the World Bank