EIC welcomes World Bank announcement to use Rated Criteria in Procurement
Since 2016, the World Bank’s Procurement Framework has encouraged the use of rated criteria to evaluate quality, sustainability, and innovative aspects of bids in decision making. Now the Bank has announced on its Website that it will require as of September 1st 2023 the use of ‘Rated Criteria’ as the default approach for most international procurements.
EIC welcomes the World Bank’s announcement given that the three pillars of sustainability – economy, ecology and social responsibility – are well anchored in the policy documents of the World Bank Group, for instance in the Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework and in the IFC Environmental and Social Performance Standards, whereas, to date, the ecological and social aspects of public procurement have not yet been fully operationalised in the Bank’s Procurement Guidelines and Standard Bidding Documents.
EIC salutes the World Bank for advancing the use of rated criteria in procurement to help its borrowers leveraging procurement to help meet their development goals, as mentioned by the Bank’s Vice President, Operations Policy and Country Services (OPCS), Ed Mountfield.
Bearing in mind that the World Bank will implement its new approach in close collaboration with client countries, international institutions, and the private sector, EIC has taken the initiative to develop in collaboration with the European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations (EFCA) a step-by-step guide intended to support the new World Bank procurement strategy and to incorporate quality and sustainability criteria in large infrastructure tenders. The joint EIC/EFCA Toolkit for the Procurement of Sustainable Infrastructure will be published in spring 2023-
EIC already calls on the financiers of the EU Global Gateway initiative, in particular on the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB), to take the World Bank decision as an example for their own procurement policy.