The World Bank's Influence on Procurement Reform in Africa

Abstract

The World Bank is a development finance institution established by virtue of the Bretton Woods agreement to provide reconstruction aid to the countries devastated by World War II. The success of the Bank in doing this meant that it soon refocused its objectives to provide development finance to developing countries. In the aftermath of the ‘corruption eruption’ in the mid-1990s, the Bank decided to take a primary stance in the fight against corruption. One of the ways in which the Bank drives its anti-corruption agenda is by steering public procurement reform in developing countries with the aim of reducing corruption in public procurement in those countries. Although there is information on the reasons for procurement reform in developing countries and the kind of reforms that should be undertaken, such as legal reforms (e.g., new legislation based on the UNCITRAL Model Law) and institutional reform (creation of a procurement compliance unit, creation of an