Publication: International Cooperation and the Reform of Public Procurement
Policies
Loading...
Date
2005-09
ISSN
Published
2005-09
Author(s)
Evenett, Simon J.
Editor(s)
Abstract
The decision not to launch negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) on three of the Singapore Issues in the so-called July 2004 package provides an opportunity to revisit the knowledge base on which proposals for further international collective action may be drawn. This paper examines the available evidence on public procurement practices in developing countries that could be relevant to further multilateral rule making on state purchasing. Although there is considerable agreement on ends (efficient, non-corrupt, and transparent public purchasing systems), little information is available on means and, in particular, on the effective and replicable strategies that developing countries can adopt to improve their public procurement systems. A concerted effort to substantially add to the knowledge base on public procurement reforms in developing countries, through targeted research and international exchange of information on implemented procurement policies and outcomes, is critical to identifying areas where further binding multilateral disciplines may be beneficial.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Evenett, Simon J.; Hoekman, Bernard M.. 2005. International Cooperation and the Reform of Public Procurement
Policies. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 3720. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/8268 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Exports, Labor Markets, and the Environment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)What is the environmental impact of exports? Focusing on 2000–20, this paper combines customs, administrative, and census microdata to estimate employment elasticities with respect to exports. The findings show that municipalities that faced increased exports experienced faster growth in formal employment. The elasticities were 0.25 on impact, peaked at 0.4, and remained positive and significant even 10 years after the shock, pointing to a long and protracted labor market adjustment. In the long run, informal employment responds negatively to export shocks. Using a granular taxonomy for economic activities based on their environmental impact, the paper documents that environmentally risky activities have a larger share of employment than environmentally sustainable ones, and that the relationship between these activities and exports is nuanced. Over the short run, environmentally risky employment responds more strongly to exports relative to environmentally sustainable employment. However, over the long run, this pattern reverses, as the impact of exports on environmentally sustainable employment is more persistent.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Asymmetric Bank Distress Amplifier of Recessions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-11)One defining feature of financial crises, evident in U.S. and international data, is asymmetric bank distress—concentrated losses on a subset of banks. This paper proposes a model in which shocks to borrowers’ productivity dispersion lead to asymmetric bank losses. The framework exhibits a “bank distress amplifier,” exacerbating economic downturns by causing costly bank failures and raising uncertainty about the solvency of banks, thereby pushing banks to deleverage. Quantitative analysis shows that the bank distress amplifier doubles investment decline and increases the spread by 2.5 times during the Great Recession compared to a standard financial accelerator model. The mechanism helps explain how a seemingly small shock can sometimes trigger a large crisis.Publication Impact of Heat Waves on Learning Outcomes and the Role of Conditional Cash Transfers(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-14)This paper evaluates the impact of higher temperatures on learning outcomes in Peru. The results suggest that 1 degree above 20°C is equivalent to 7 and 6 percent of a standard deviation of what a student learns in a year for math and reading tests, respectively. These results hold true when the main specification is changed, splitting the sample, collapsing the data at school level, and using other climate specifications. The paper aims to improve understanding of how to deal with the impacts of climate change on learning outcomes in developing countries. The evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs can mitigate the negative effects of higher temperatures on students’ learning outcomes in math and reading.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Fraud and Corruption Awareness Handbook : A Handbook for Civil Servants Involved in Public Procurement(Warsaw, 2013)This handbook is intended for government employees involved in public procurement. It provides some insights into how fraud and corruption schemes work in public investments. The handbook identifies a range of fraud and corruption indicators, or red flags, and relevant schemes that may become apparent during the life of an investment, from design to implementation. The primary focus of this handbook is fraud and corruption in procurement, with some coverage of general governance issues. It is based on the experience of Poland s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau and the World Bank s Integrity Vice Presidency, and it presents examples referring both to public investments implemented under Polish public procurement law and international competitive bidding. This handbook aims to provide support to the managers of procuring entities in conducting public procurement by identifying frequently occurring irregularities and suggesting methods of preventing them.Publication Republic of Belarus : Corruption Vulnerability Scan(Washington, DC, 2007-05-23)The Corruption Vulnerability Scan (CVS) is an internal Bank document aimed at providing a better understanding on the Bank's vulnerability in extending assistance to Belarus, and making suggestions as to how to reduce risks in the use of Bank funds, while improving results on the ground. The CVS team visited Belarus in March 2007. Its main conclusion is that the vulnerability to corruption of Bank funds and activities funded from loan proceeds in Belarus is low, as long as Bank fiduciary procedures are used and implementation is closely supervised. The report is in three parts: Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Belarus, Public Finance Management and the Bank Portfolio.Publication Fiduciary Systems Assessment : Maharashtra Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program(Washington, DC, 2014-02)A fiduciary systems assessment (FSA) was carried out to evaluate the arrangements relevant to the program and to determine whether they provide reasonable assurance that the program funds will be used for their intended purpose. Taking into account the improvements required and the agreement on the actions required to strengthen the systems (which are reflected in the program action plan (PAP), the overall fiduciary framework is considered adequate to support program management and to achieve desired results. Government of Maharashtra (GoM) has a well-developed budgetary framework that ensures allocation of adequate resources to all departments and programs. There is sufficient predictability in the availability of resources; however, to maintain transparency in GoM's financing, an exclusive budget line has been allocated to this program as is usually done by GoM for externally aided projects. Fiduciary arrangements in the sector are guided by several rules and legislations, including the state financial rules, public works department (PWD) manual, store purchase rules, Maharashtra jeevan pradhikaran (MJP) act, Zila Parishad (ZP) account code and the Bombay panchayat rules. The existing governance and accountability arrangements in water supply and sanitation department (WSSD) include the anti-corruption bureau, which enforces the prevention of corruption act, 1988; audits by the comptroller and auditor general (C and AG) of India, the country's premier auditor; right to information (RTI) act 2005; and WSSD's vigilance function and its grievance redress system (E-Pani).Publication Ukraine : Country Procurement Assessment Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2007-03-30)Ukraine enacted a comprehensive Public Procurement Law (PPL) on February 22, 2000. The first World Bank Country Procurement Assessment Report (CPAR) for Ukraine finalized in November 2001 included an action plan for improving systemic efficiency of public procurement. Since the 2001 CPAR, the country has undergone numerous political and economic changes with natural concurrent evolution of the public procurement system. In light of these changes, the Government and the World Bank jointly undertook the present review of the legal and regulatory framework for procurement, institutional capacities, actual practice, and the integrity of the system as a whole. The analysis and main findings of this report are presented as follows: Section 2 analyzes the legislative and regulatory framework of late 2005 through this writing in 2006. Section 3 analyzes institutional framework and management capacity. Section 4 covers procurement operations, including functionality of the public procurement market, contract administration, and provisions for dispute resolution. The report then discusses integrity and transparency of the system (Section 5), e-procurement (Section 6), public procurement contract performance (Section 7), and gradual harmonization with the EU directives and eventual accession to the WTO (Section 8). Section 9 presents risk analysis and the 2006 action plan. Key recommendations are summarized in Section 9 and repeated in the executive summary.Publication Bangladesh Model/Survey Note : Assessment of Implementation of Public Procurement Regulations(Washington, DC, 2009-06)The report provides an assessment of the status of implementation of public procurement regulations 2003. The objective was to assess the performance of the system using a two-way approach. The report summarizes the major findings of the assessment carried out through a Bank-Government joint collaboration survey with sample data of two financial years (FY2006 and FY2007) from the key sectoral ministries/agencies including the Roads and Highways Department (RHD), Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Rural Electrification Board (REB), and Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). Although Bangladesh has made good progress in establishing the foundations for an effective public procurement system by introducing necessary legislations and regulatory institutions, the results of this assessment show that overall the system has been performing poor to average. The performance is poor as regards efficiency of procurement process and contract management, and it is average in terms of competitiveness and transparency. Procurement delays are a major challenge, affecting project implementation. The higher the level of contract approving authority, the lesser is the efficiency of the procurement system. Though important strides have been made in changing the procurement environment, yet its application has proven to be relatively inconsistent.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.Publication Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003)Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.