The 2017 meeting of the Multilateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) Heads of Procurement (HOP) was hosted by the Black Sea Trade and Development Bank in Thessaloniki in September 5-7, 2017. The Heads of Procurement from the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (AsDB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and the World Bank (WB) attended the three-day meeting along with their delegations.

The HOP have been meeting annually for the past 17 years to harmonize, to the extent possible, their institutions’ procurement policies and practices in an effort to enhance economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness in all MDB financed operations.

In this year’s meeting, the HOP discussed and noted that:

• following the adoption of the model Joint Co-Financing Framework by the HOP in late 2016, more than five framework agreements have been adopted or are being finalized between MDBs, leading to better coordination and delivery of MDB procurement requirements to address our clients’ needs;
• the Abnormally Low Tender (ALT) Guidance, adopted by the HOP in early 2016, has assisted clients in better determining when and how to investigate and treat ALTs and has helped raised the value-for-money of bids being submitted;
• in view of the upcoming work on the MAPS initiative between the OECD and the MDBs, the HOP will retain the right to approve any MAPS appraisal prior to its publication;
• the collaboration between HOP and FIDIC has moved from cooperation on an MDB-specific document (Pink Book) to a service-based collaboration on a case-by-case basis;
• Environmental, Social, Health, and Safety (ESHS) requirements have become increasingly important and are been increasingly adopted as part of the bidding documents;
• Procurement tools and procedures are not best suited to address domestic preference issues, as such issues are of mostly of a political and strategic nature and should be addressed by the MDB shareholders instead.

The next full meeting of the HOP will be held in Beijing in the Summer/Early Autumn of 2018 and will be hosted by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.