Interactive: Analyzing the World Bank's corporate procurement contracts
The World Bank spends more than $1 billion a year making sure that its own offices and operations run smoothly — and that offers opportunities to contractors. A Devex analysis of the data reveals that contract awards can skew toward U.S. firms and that a surprising number of winners are consulting firms, not suppliers.
Although best known as a lender and financier to developing countries, the World Bank group also spends more than $1 billion a year making sure that its own offices and operations run smoothly, which can offer opportunities to contractors. Like any large business — the bank has a global staff of more than 15,000 people and 150 offices around the world — it has a long list of goods and services to procure, including office furniture, health insurance for bank employees, construction and consulting services. To meet those needs, the development finance institution hires a range of consultants and contractors whose contracts are handled through a special corporate procurement unit. This work is separate from the institution’s procurement team working to support borrower countries and businesses procuring goods and services for projects financed by World Bank loans. The bank’s Corporate Procurement Policy Summary outlines the rules and regulations governing how the vendor community can do business with them. The institution offers three different types of contracts: fixed value contracts, indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts, and framework contracts. Where fixed value contracts are awarded up front against a set of predefined deliverables and with an agreed-upon price tag, IDIQs and framework agreements are more flexible and tend to specify fewer details at the time of signing, such as the terms of reference, award total and timeline. Devex has compiled an interactive data dashboard to show recent trends in the bank’s publicly available corporate procurement awards data. The bank began publishing this data in July 2013, and only contracts above $250,000 in total value are required to be publicly disclosed — or, in the case of IDIQ contracts, if their total cost is estimated to exceed $250,000. Furthermore, contracts are excluded if the information is deemed commercially sensitive or confidential, a bank spokesperson told Devex. As a result, the Devex analysis covers 1,316 corporate procurement contracts awarded between July 2013 and July 2017, including 1,121 fixed value contracts worth $752.5 million dollars and 195 IDIQ contracts of unknown value. It also includes information on the vendor, the vendor’s nationality, and the size and nature of the contract. There are two notable concentrations in the awards data. The first is that U.S.-based vendors won the vast majority of contracts, both fixed value (53 percent, or $402 million) and IDIQs (82 percent, or 159 contracts). However, if one considers only consulting services contracts, the percentages are more evenly distributed amongst vendors of different origins, as this ignores the costs that the World Bank’s physical presence in the U.S. incurs, such as locally-sourced office equipment, insurance, and more. The same bank spokesperson pointed out that the data also does not include the sub-contracts of vendors to firms in project countries or regions. The second concentration is that 78 percent ($590 million) of fixed value contracts went to consulting services. This may come as a surprise, as the term “corporate procurement” conjures up images of office goods like pencils and notebooks. However, the truth is that the bank’s Corporate Procurement Unit also procures technical assistance contracts of varying degrees of complexity, including individual, short-term contracts, as well as longer-term contracts for consultancies. All these opportunities are posted on the eConsultant2 portal of the World Bank, and can also be found on Devex. The opportunities for consultancies and firms are posted in Devex’s own funding opportunities data, while the opportunities for individual consultancies are posted in Devex’s development jobs database. While corporate procurement is a small proportion of the market of opportunities for working with the World Bank, it is one worth monitoring, especially for individual consultants or small, specialized consultancies. Check out more practical business and development advice online, and subscribe to Money Matters to receive the latest contract award and shortlist announcements, and procurement and fundraising news.
Although best known as a lender and financier to developing countries, the World Bank group also spends more than $1 billion a year making sure that its own offices and operations run smoothly, which can offer opportunities to contractors.
Like any large business — the bank has a global staff of more than 15,000 people and 150 offices around the world — it has a long list of goods and services to procure, including office furniture, health insurance for bank employees, construction and consulting services.
To meet those needs, the development finance institution hires a range of consultants and contractors whose contracts are handled through a special corporate procurement unit. This work is separate from the institution’s procurement team working to support borrower countries and businesses procuring goods and services for projects financed by World Bank loans.
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Sophie Edwards is a Devex Contributing Reporter covering global education, water and sanitation, and innovative financing, along with other topics. She has previously worked for NGOs, and the World Bank, and spent a number of years as a journalist for a regional newspaper in the U.K. She has a master's degree from the Institute of Development Studies and a bachelor's from Cambridge University.
Matthew Wolf works with the Devex Analytics team from Johannesburg in South Africa, helping improve our coverage of and insight into development work and funding around the world. He draws on work experience with Thomson Reuters in Africa, MENA and Latin America, where he helped uncover, pursue and win opportunities with local governments and donor agencies. He is interested in data-driven solutions to development challenges, results-based financing, and ICT4D.
