World Bank Update
by Virginia Fairweather, Editor in Chief;Serial Information: Worldwide Projects, 1993, Vol. 1, Issue 2, Pg. 16-20
Document Type: Feature article
Abstract:
Consists of two parts. In the first, Raghavan Srinivasan, the World Bank's chief procurement adviser, talks about issues in international contracts and procurement. He believes that while the goal of aid programs should be to develop local skills, tied aid attitudes in developing countries themselves create a bias in favor of firms from developed nations. While statistics show that, with or without tied aid, a given country's consultants will get about the same amount of work on internationally funded projects, untied aid is often not acceptable for domestic political reasons. The Bank is trying to help local consultants become more competitive with international firms. Other recent developments at the Bank include attention to the lag in project implementation; questioning of the traditional policy of lending only to public-sector entities; the development of criteria for sustainable development; changes in tender/contract documents; and a more open attitude toward fighting corruption. A separate interview with Christian Walser, legal adviser to the Bank on procurement and consultant services, discusses differences between the Bank's new contract documents and those of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC), focusing on FIDIC's so-called Red and Yellow Books, which cover conditions of contract for civil engineering construction works and electrical and mechanical works. He also discusses liability for consulting engineers and architects and the preparation of a new contract form for French-speaking countries in Africa.
Subject Headings: Consulting services | Contracts and subcontracts | Procurement | Construction engineering | Sustainable development | Statistics | Public policy
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