Publication: Unsolicited Proposals : Competitive Solutions for Private Infrastructure
Loading...
Published
2002-03
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This Note looks at systems some governments have used to transform unsolicited proposals for private infrastructure projects into competitively tendered projects. It focuses on the policies that Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa have adopted for managing such proposals. A companion Note explores the problems associated with unsolicited proposals, especially the risks they raise for competition and transparency. Among private infrastructure projects reaching financial closure, the share that originated as unsolicited proposals varies across countries. In the Philippines about 15 percent of such projects have been unsolicited, while in the Republic of Korea the share is as high as 50 percent. The share is also significant in many other countries, and policymakers have begun to recognize the need for formal systems to manage these unsolicited proposals. Governments could use several approaches to handle unsolicited proposals. One option is simply to adopt a law prohibiting unsolicited projects-and some governments have done this. A second option is for governments to purchase the project concept and then award the project through a competitive bidding process in which no bidder has a predefined advantage. A third option-the one adopted in such countries as Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa-is to offer the original proponent a predefined advantage in a competitive bidding process. Under this third option two main approaches have developed: the bonus system and the Swiss challenge system.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2002. Unsolicited Proposals : Competitive Solutions for Private Infrastructure. Viewpoint. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11357 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Small Business Tax Regimes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Simplified tax regimes for micro and small enterprises in developing countries are intended to facilitate voluntary tax compliance. However, survey evidence suggests that small business taxation based on simplified bookkeeping or turnover is sometimes perceived as too complex for microenterprises in countries with high illiteracy levels. Very simple fixed tax regimes not requiring any books or records tend to be overly popular but prone to abuse. System reforms will require more precise tailoring of the simplified regimes to their target beneficiaries, coupled with strong compliance management to detect and deter abuse. The overall objective of simplified taxation for micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in developing countries is generally to facilitate voluntary tax compliance and remove obstacles in moving toward business formalization and growth.Publication Investment Climate in Africa(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-07-01)The World Bank Group has been working on investment climate reform in Sub-Saharan Africa for nearly a decade, a period characterized by dramatic economic growth on the continent. Establishing links between such reform interventions and economic growth, however, is a complex problem. Although this note finds some connection between investment climate reform and economic growth, establishing more concrete evidence of causation will require greater focus at the country level, as well as on small and medium enterprises. This is where investment climate interventions generate change.Publication Export Competitiveness(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)This review of the empirical literature shows that industries with more intense domestic competition will export more. Competition law enforcement can be traced to export performance and is complementary to trade reforms. Pro-competition market regulation that reduces restrictions and promotes competition, where it is viable, is an important determinant for trade. The elimination of barriers to entry and rivalry, and a level playing field in upstream sectors contributes to export competitiveness in downstream manufacturing sectors. In some sectors, effective competition policy can directly lower trade costs.Publication Competition and Poverty(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-04)A literature review shows competition policy reforms can deliver benefits for the poorest households and improve income distribution. A lack of competition in food markets hurts the poorest households the most. Competition in input markets and between buyers helps farmers and small businesses. And more competitive markets bolster job growth over the longer term. More research is needed, however, to better understand the impact of competition reforms and antitrust enforcement on poverty and shared prosperity.Publication Contract Farming(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-10)Contract farming involves production by farmers under agreement with buyers for their outputs. This arrangement can help integrate small-scale farmers into modern agricultural value chains, providing them with inputs, technical assistance, and assured markets. Critics contend that contract partners may subject farmers to abuses. The literature shows that in fact contract farming can raise farm income, but mainly for high-value crops. It also indicates that in many cases firms are willing to work with small farms. This note confirms that conflicts are common between buyers and farmers, and that alternative dispute resolution methods may help resolve them.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Unsolicited Proposals : The Issues for Private Infrastructure Projects(Washington, DC, 2003-03)Many of the world's most controversial private infrastructure projects originated as unsolicited proposals to governments. This Note explores critical questions for developing policies to deal with unsolicited proposals. For example, under what conditions should governments allow unsolicited proposals? And how can they add competition and transparency to the process? A companion Note reviews the methods used by the governments of Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa to transform unsolicited proposals into competitively tendered projects.Publication Public-Private Partnerships : Reference Guide Version 1.0(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-02)The Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) reference guide seeks to provide advice on what PPP practitioners should know, rather than provide advice on what to do. The guide sets out the main topics, looks at the key issues that must be addressed, and provides what we consider the most important references that PPP practitioners can turn to for answers and to enhance their own knowledge and understanding. It is structured into separate sections that focus on three main areas, firstly what are PPPs, when might they be used and the advantages and disadvantages relative to public provision; secondly the policy, legal and institutional frameworks that should be put into place to help improve their effectiveness; and finally the ways in which PPP projects can be developed and implemented. A diverse range of case studies and institutional solutions, from all parts of the world, are presented in the PPP reference guide.Publication Private Solutions for Infrastructure in Cambodia : A Country Framework Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002)Infrastructure plays a crucial role in supporting Cambodia's growth and development. Improving access to efficient and affordable water, electricity, transport, and telecommunications services has a major impact on the living standards of individual households. This Country Framework Report (CFR) is one of a series of country reviews aimed at improving the environment for the private sector involvement in infrastructure. This book describes and evaluates the current status and performance of key infrastructure sectors and the policy, regulatory, and institutional environment for involving the private sector in infrastructure sectors. It also helps policymakers to establish future reform and development strategies.Publication Public-Private Partnerships : Reference Guide, Version 2.0(World Bank, Washington, DC; Asian Development Bank, Mandaluyong City, Philippines; Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)A growing number of developing country governments are interested in using public-private partnerships (PPPs) to provide public infrastructure assets and services. The PPP reference guide seeks to provide advice on what PPP practitioners should know, rather than provide advice on what to do. The guide sets out the main topics, looks at the key issues that must be addressed, and provides what one consider the most important references that PPP practitioners can turn to for answers and to enhance one knowledge and understanding. It is structured into separate sections that focus on three main areas, firstly what are PPPs, when may they be used and the advantages and disadvantages relative to public provision; secondly the policy, legal, and institutional frameworks that should be put into place to help improve effectiveness; and finally the ways in which PPP projects can be developed and implemented. It introduces key topics on PPP, sets out options, and directs readers to examples, and key references where one can find out more. This guide provides new resources and updated examples.Publication Building Export Competitiveness in Laos : Summary Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11)The basic framework for the background study on building export competitiveness in Laos is based on the National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy (NGPES), which appropriately stresses the need to: (i) improve the business climate by creating a predictable and transparent policy environment; (ii) streamline administrative procedures and regulations that are an obstacle to domestic and foreign private investment; and (iii) strengthen market institutions, including most notably those related to dispute resolution and contract enforcement. This paper focuses on three key priority areas: (a) Strengthening fiscal management is a first priority area. Progress in strengthening fiscal management is likely to require reforms to the broader framework of center-province fiscal relations; (b) Establishing a functioning banking system is a second priority area. Laos needs an efficient banking system to achieve the government's development goals and meet the competitive challenges of regional integration; and (3) Improving competitiveness is a third priority area. Conventional macroeconomic assessments of competitiveness using real effective exchange rates do not suggest any major competitiveness concerns. Other approaches, involving a more detailed assessment of the various elements that make up the investment climate, suggest that competitiveness is a major impediment to attracting investment to Laos. This study addresses the main elements of the reform agenda to strengthen Laos' competitiveness, placing special emphasis on trade facilitation and reforms to the business environment.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication Regional Poverty and Inequality Update: Latin America and the Caribbean, October 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-23)This brief summarizes recent facts related to poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) using the latest wave of harmonized household surveys from the Socio-Economic Database for LAC (SEDLAC). This brief was produced by the Poverty Global Practice in the LAC Region of the World Bank.Publication Ukraine Country Environmental Analysis(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-01)The objective of the Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) is to assess the adequacy and performance of the policy, legal, and institutional framework for environmental management in Ukraine, in light of the decentralization process of environmental governance and wider reform objectives, and to provide recommendations to government to address the key gaps identified. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe and has a population of 43 million, the majority of whom live in urban areas. It is a lower middle income country, with the services, industry and agriculture sectors being main contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Ukraine faces a number of environmental challenges, as identified in its National Environmental Strategy 2020 (NES). Key among these are: air pollution; quality of water resources and land degradation; solid waste management; biodiversity loss; human health issues associated with environmental risk factors; in addition to climate change. The scope of Ukrainian environmental legislation is quite broad and comprehensive (more than 300 legal acts) and covers most areas of environmental protection and natural resources management. However, the environmental legislation faces a number of weaknesses:The environmental legislation is largely declaratory in nature and does not have all the essential enforcement mechanisms for the implementation of legal acts and international agreements; Many of the acts are not coordinated with each other; and Legislation undergoes limited analysis of its impact—for example, no in-depth analysis such as Regulatory Impact Analysis is conducted for proposed pieces of legislation.Publication Housing Subsidies for Refugees(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-22)Refugees require assistance for basic needs like housing but local host communities may feel excluded from that assistance, potentially affecting community relations. This study experimentally evaluates the effect of a housing assistance program for Syrian refugees in Jordan on both the recipients and their neighbors. The program offered full rental subsidies and landlord incentives for housing improvements, but saw only moderate uptake, in part due to landlord reluctance. The program improved short-run housing quality and lowered housing expenditures, but did not yield sustained economic benefits, partly due to redistribution of aid. The program unexpectedly led to a deterioration in child socio-emotional well-being, and also strained relations between Jordanian neighbors and refugees. In all, housing subsidies had limited measurable benefits for refugee well-being while worsening social cohesion, highlighting the possible need for alternative forms of aid.Publication Thailand Monthly Economic Monitor, October 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-22)Fiscal conditions remained stable, with a modest widening of the deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP. New stimulus measures are expected to support short-term demand without breaching the public debt ceiling. Inflation stayed negative, reflecting lower energy and food prices amid subdued domestic demand. The central bank kept the policy rate unchanged, citing limited policy space. Thailand’s growth momentum has slowed further as manufacturing activity and services weakened as projected. Tourism remained subdued, largely due to fewer Chinese visitors. Goods exports also slowed as earlier front-loaded orders faded, particularly in agriculture and industrial goods. The Thai baht depreciated in early October as the US dollar appreciated and the current account turned negative.