The document discusses measuring efficiency in international public procurement. It analyzes data on over 500 contracts that went through the World Bank's prior review process. On average, it takes 286 days to sign a contract from issuing the initial procurement notice, but there are outliers with much longer times. National competitive bidding contracts tend to take less time than international competitive bidding contracts. Contract value, country capacity and governance also influence time taken. However, current World Bank tracking systems cannot provide detailed data on time taken for individual procurement process steps, limiting analysis of delays. Improving data collection could help identify resources used, iterations and complexity to better diagnose delays.

1. Measuring Efficiency in International Public Procurement
Anjali Kumar, Arvind Nair and Juliane Piecha
International Public Procurement Conference
Dublin, August 2014
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IEG WORLD BANK | IFC | MIGA

2. • Apply Best Practices through Procurement
Guidelines
• Economy and Efficiency in Project
Implementation
Fiduciary
Responsibility:
World Bank Procurement: Context
2
• Reducing Transaction Costs
• Better Procurement Planning, clear and
appropriate Evaluation criteria
• Effective public procurement in client
countries enables better use of
government budgets
Value
for
Money
World Bank policies and standard bidding documents provide many of the
mechanism necessary to consider Value for Money factors.

3. World Bank Procurement Review Process
3
Source: World Bank, IEG
• Clients’concerns: Timeliness,delaysinprocurement
• Analysisofprocessefficiencyinprocurementtransactionsneeded
“No-Objection” Steps for Prior Review

4. 4
World Bank: Procurement Efficiency Data
• Centralized system: Focus on limited key fiduciary data
• Regional systems: Information for specific monitoring needs
 Unable to provide data for analysis of procurement process steps
Bank-wide database for contract information
Procurement Plan Execution System SEPA:
Latin America and Caribbean Region
Procurement Cycle Tracking System PROCYS:
Africa Region
Procurement Portfolio Dashboard MNA-dash:
Middle East & North Africa Region
Efforts towards integrated system:
Electronic No-Objection

5. Data and Methodology
5
• Analysis of Contract Data: Bank Databases + Sample
of 500+ contracts
•Data on prior-reviewed contracts constructed from questionnaire
surveyed in eleven client countries
•Information on dates of each step where Bank is required to provide
its “No-Objection”
•Dataset records other country and contract attributes that could
potentially affect overall procurement efficiency
• Average Elapsed Times, Frequency Distributions
and Regression Analysis of time taken in
intermediate steps of procurement process
• Current Bank tracking systems not equipped to
provide key information on individual procurement
process steps

6. Basic Sample Characteristics
6
Source:
World Bank, IEG
Number of Observations by Country, Fiscal Year, Procurement Category and Sector

7. Average Elapsed Times
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Average Elapsed Time Between Steps in the Procurement Process all Contracts (days)
PROCUREMENT PROCESS
STEPS
Borrower
first
Submission
to Bank of
draft Bid
(preQ)
Documents
Bank final No
Objection to draft
Bid (PreQ)
Documents
Borrower
issue of Bid
(PreQ)
Documents
Borrower bid
(PreQ)
opening
date/ Minutes
Borrower
submission to
Bank of Bid
Evaluation
Report
Bank No-
Objection to
Bid
Evaluation
Report
Date of
Contract
Signature
Issue of Specific Procurement
Notice
171.9 169.0 135.1 126.7 226.4 253.0 269.5
Borrower first Submission to
Bank of draft Bid (preQ)
Documents
56.6 66.0 121.8 224.3 252.9 286.1
Bank final No Objection to
draft Bid (PreQ) Documents
24.6 77.7 178.3 199.8 231.8
Borrower issue of Bid (PreQ)
Documents
59.7 170.6 190.4 223.3
Borrower Bid (PreQ) Opening
date/ Minutes
118.4 144.9 178.0
Borrower Submission to Bank
of Bid Evaluation Report
37.4 73.7
Bank No-Objection to Bid
Evaluation Report
48.2
Source: IEG analysis of a sample of contract data
Onaverage,ittakes286daystosignacontract–butlongtailofoutliers

8. Variations in Elapsed Times
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Distribution of Days from Issue of Specific Procurement Notice to Contract signature
Distributionofelapsedtimesshowsexistenceofextremevaluesforall
procurementmethods,especiallyhighvaluesforICBandQCBScontracts
0204060
NumberofContracts
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Number of Days
All Contracts
051015
NumberofContracts
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Number of Days
QCBS
0510152025
NumberofContracts
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Number of Days
NCB
0102030
NumberofContracts
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Number of Days
ICB
Source: IEG analysis of a sample of contract data

9. What explains Time Taken in the
Procurement Process?
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Contract value emerges as important determinant of elapsed time
Contracts procured using NCB appear to take less time than ICB
Country capacity and governance matter
Diagnostic of delays requires better data availability, e.g. identification of
resources used, number of iterations, complexity of contract, etc.
FindingsfromStatisticalAnalysis

10. Determinantsof ProcurementEfficiency(cont’d)
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Processing Time Submission of Draft Bid Documents to Bank’s No-Objection to Final Bid Evaluation Report
Note: N=213; Specifications includes country and regional level controls.
Robust standard errors in parentheses, *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1
Source: IEG analysis of sample contract data

11. Generalizability to other Procurement Contexts
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Public
Procurement deals
with trade-off
between
Compliance and
performance:
• Inefficiencies reduce
Value for Money
• Need to measure and
analyze procurement
information
High level of
variability in
processing times due
to country indicators
or review process?
• Setting right incentives
for use of existing
flexibilities
• Contribute to better
informed procurement
strategies globally
Integrated data
management as
strategic tool to
improve
procurement
performance:
• MDBs in unique
position to collect
contract data on
transactions

12. THANK YOU
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