How bank-financed works are advertised
Under the World Bank's Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers (seventh edition, September 2025), a borrower whose project is expected to involve open international competition prepares a General Procurement Notice before any procurement starts, and the Bank publishes it on its website. Each contract opened to competition then gets a Specific Procurement Notice: the borrower advertises it on its own free-access website, in a national newspaper or in the official gazette, and for open international competition the Bank publishes it on its website too.
The General Procurement Notice is your early warning of contracts to come. The project's Procurement Plan, which the Bank publishes once it has cleared it, gives each contract's selection method, cost estimate and timetable. The World Bank's procurement notices page also offers its own e-mail alerts.
ADB-financed contracts are likewise procured by the borrower, and ADB lists procurement notices on its Tenders page. ADB's Procurement Directive took effect on 1 January 2026, with a Technical Instruction that gives borrowers guidance on advertisement among other things, so check where each notice says it was published.
Older guides tell contractors to watch UNDB Online. The World Bank deleted that reference from its works bidding document in its March 2025 revision, so treat the Bank's own notices page and the borrower's channels as the places to look.
Where each funder publishes
Use this as a starting map, checked in October 2026. Each funder's own pages are the authority, and most expect you to register before you can download documents or submit a bid.
| Funder | Where notices appear | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| World Bank | Procurement Notices on projects.worldbank.org, plus the borrower's website, a national newspaper or the official gazette | The notices page offers e-mail alerts. International works use the Bank's standard procurement documents. |
| Asian Development Bank (ADB) | Tenders on adb.org, plus the borrower's own channels | From 1 January 2026, internationally advertised works are evaluated with merit point criteria. |
| African Development Bank (AfDB) | Procurement pages on afdb.org | The Bank states that its procurement procedures must offer equal opportunities to firms from its member countries. |
| UN agencies | UNGM, the procurement portal of the UN system | Many UN agencies use UNGM as their supplier roster, and it runs a tender alert service. |
| UNDP | UNDP procurement notices and UNGM | Suppliers view solicitation documents and submit bids through Quantum, UNDP's online procurement portal. |
| EBRD | ECEPP, the EBRD Client e-Procurement Portal; the procurement notices page on ebrd.com lists contracts not run through ECEPP | Register in ECEPP before taking part. New Procurement Policies and Rules apply to projects that pass concept approval from 1 September 2026; earlier editions can still govern ongoing projects. |
| AIIB | Project procurement pages on aiib.org | Open to firms and individuals from all countries, whether or not the country is a member. |
| Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) | MCC's Work with us page, which links opportunities in partner countries | The same page links MCC's Compact Procurement Guidelines. |
Who may bid
Eligibility comes from each funder's rules and is repeated in the bidding document; in World Bank documents it sits in Section V, Eligible Countries.
- World Bank: eligible firms and individuals from all countries may bid. The exceptions include countries the borrower's law bars commercial relations with, imports or payments barred under UN Security Council decisions, and firms the Bank has sanctioned. A state-owned enterprise of the borrower's country must show it is legally and financially autonomous, operates under commercial law and is not supervised by the agency contracting it.
- ADB: ADB's founding Agreement (Article 14) says the proceeds of its ordinary financing are to be used only for procurement in member countries of goods and services produced in member countries, so ADB-financed contracts are generally open to firms from its member countries. Confirm the eligibility clause in each bidding document issued under the 2026 Procurement Directive.
- AfDB: the Bank states that its procurement procedures must offer equal opportunities to contractors, suppliers and consultants from its member countries.
- EBRD and AIIB: EBRD welcomes individuals and companies from all countries to take part in the public-sector projects it finances, and AIIB's Procurement Policy permits firms and individuals from all countries, members or not. Each tender can still set its own conditions.
Debarment travels. Under the Agreement for Mutual Enforcement of Debarment Decisions, dated 9 April 2010 and made effective on 1 July 2011 by the World Bank, ADB, EBRD, the Inter-American Development Bank and AfDB, a firm debarred by one of them can be ineligible on projects funded by the others. Check the World Bank's list of ineligible firms and ADB's debarment and suspension register for your joint-venture partners and key subcontractors as well as your own firm. The World Bank can also disqualify a firm for two years for breaching its contractual obligations on sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.
What the bidding documents ask of a contractor
World Bank works under international competition are tendered with the Bank's standard procurement document, Request for Bids: Works. The September 2025 edition uses two envelopes, technical then financial, scores bids with rated criteria, and takes its General Conditions from FIDIC's Conditions of Contract for Construction (the Red Book, second edition 2017, 2022 reprint). The World Bank bidding documents guide walks through it section by section. These are the points that catch contractors out:
- Bid security: the Bid Data Sheet specifies either a bid security or a bid-securing declaration. A bid security must stay valid for 28 days beyond the bid validity period, and a bid without a substantially responsive security or declaration is rejected. If the employer asks you to extend validity, you may refuse without forfeiting the security. See bid security and bid validity.
- Environmental and social content: the technical part carries a Code of Conduct for Contractor's Personnel and management strategies and implementation plans for the project's key environmental and social risks, and every bid includes a declaration on sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.
- Local labour: since the September 2025 revision, unless the Bid Data Sheet says otherwise, bidders must allocate at least 30% of total labour cost to local labour, and every bid includes a Local Labour Method Statement.
- Joint-venture experience: where the document sets a minimum value for a single similar contract, members' contracts are not added together to meet it; each contract counted must meet the minimum on its own.
- Currency and domestic preference: you may price in local currency and up to three foreign currencies. Where the Procurement Plan and bidding document provide for it, in borrower countries below an income-per-head threshold the Bank sets each year, eligible domestic contractors get a 7.5% margin of preference on works: 7.5% is added to foreign bidders' prices when bids are compared.
- After award: the successful bidder furnishes the performance security, and an environmental and social performance security where the Bid Data Sheet requires one, within 28 days of receiving the letter of acceptance, and is asked for a Beneficial Ownership Disclosure Form.
ADB's documents differ in detail. Since 1 January 2026 ADB evaluates internationally advertised works with merit point criteria, which weigh quality, technical capability, safety, innovation and environmental and social performance, not price alone, and on those contracts bidders must commit at least 50% of the total labour force to local workers.
After you submit
Bids received after the deadline are not considered. On World Bank-financed contracts, the borrower then sends every bidder a Notification of Intention to Award before the contract is signed. It names the successful bidder and the contract price and, where rated criteria were used, gives each bidder's scores and ranking.
A standstill period of 10 business days normally follows. You have 3 business days from the notification to ask in writing for a debriefing, and any complaint about the award should be made within the standstill period. Ask for the debriefing even when you expected to lose: it is the cheapest feedback you will get on your next bid.
How Bidligence watches development-bank tenders
Bidligence reads the multilateral sources listed below and keeps the construction notices, leaving out the World Bank's award and cancellation notices. A notice that names its country is checked against every watch profile that includes that country. Switch on "Also watch multilateral notices" in your watch profile to receive every multilateral listing, wherever the work is. The tender alerts page explains matching and digests in full.
As of October 2026, the ADB, AfDB and Inter-American Development Bank websites refuse Bidligence's automated requests, so Bidligence does not read them directly. Their notices can still reach you from the borrower-country portals and other sources Bidligence reads, and from the nightly web search, which includes ADB's tender pages among the places it looks for each watched country. EBRD publishes its clients' notices only on ECEPP, and Bidligence reads the notices page on ebrd.com, which carries the contracts not run through ECEPP. If ADB, AfDB or EBRD work matters to you, check their portals yourself as well, or add a tender page that your borrower agency publishes to your workspace.
The list below is generated live from Bidligence's source registry and its run records: it shows the multilateral sources that returned tender notices in the last 30 days.
Sources that returned tender notices to Bidligence in the last 30 days. The list updates itself.
- World Bank — Procurement Notices
- UNDP — Procurement Notices
- TED — EU Tenders Electronic Daily (CPV 45)
- UNGM — UN Global Marketplace
Reading a bank-financed tender pack with Bidligence
Once you have the documents, upload them to a bid. AI tender analysis reads the pack for the procurement framework and evaluation method, the pass/fail eligibility requirements, the mandatory documents, the bid security terms (type, amount or percentage, currency, validity, acceptable issuers and wording), environmental, social and local-content requirements, and the key dates as amended by the addenda you upload. Bidligence's global procurement profile follows World Bank and FIDIC practice, with FIDIC 2017 and the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework among its standards.
The Submission Guard turns the mandatory documents into a checklist matched against your Evidence Vault. Before you submit, it lists missing items, linked certificates that have expired, the bid-security amount and validity the tender requires, claims still to confirm, and a warning when the deadline is close. Bidligence does not issue securities, check a bank's guarantee wording or rule on your eligibility; those stay with you, your bank and the employer.
A short checklist before you commit
Bank-financed bids are expensive to prepare. Work through these before the costs build up.
- 1Find the project's General Procurement Notice and Procurement Plan, so you know which contracts are coming and when.
- 2Register on the portal the notice names (the borrower's e-procurement system, ECEPP, UNDP's Quantum portal or UNGM) well before you need the documents.
- 3Check eligibility for your firm, your joint-venture partners and your key subcontractors, including the debarment lists.
- 4Read the Bid Data Sheet against the Instructions to Bidders: bid security, bid validity, qualification thresholds, rated criteria and their weightings.
- 5Ask your bank for the bid security early, in the form and wording the document gives.
- 6Price the local-labour commitment and the environmental and social plans into the bid from the start; the BOQ pricing guide covers the build-up.
- 7Make the bid/no-bid decision on the numbers before you commit the team.
Questions
- Where can I find World Bank tenders?
- On the Procurement Notices page of projects.worldbank.org, which offers e-mail alerts, and in the borrower country, where the implementing agency advertises on its website, in a national newspaper or in the official gazette. A project's General Procurement Notice and Procurement Plan show the contracts still to come.
- Can a company from any country bid on World Bank-financed works?
- Generally yes: the World Bank permits eligible firms from all countries. The exceptions include countries the borrower's law bars dealings with, UN Security Council measures and firms the Bank has sanctioned, and the bidding document's Section V is the final word.
- Does Bidligence monitor ADB tenders?
- Not directly. As of October 2026 ADB's website refuses Bidligence's automated requests, so Bidligence picks up ADB-financed works through borrower-country portals, its other sources and its nightly web search, which includes ADB's tender pages among the places it looks. If ADB work matters to you, check adb.org/projects/tenders yourself too.
- What is a bid-securing declaration?
- A signed declaration that the World Bank's works document allows in place of a bid security when the Bid Data Sheet asks for it. If you withdraw your bid during its validity or fail to sign the contract or furnish the performance security once it is accepted, you are suspended from bidding for that employer's contracts for the period the Bid Data Sheet sets.
- Do I need to register before I can bid?
- Usually. EBRD says suppliers must register in ECEPP before taking part, many UNDP tenders run through its Quantum online portal, and many UN agencies use UNGM as their supplier roster. Register well before the deadline week.
Sources
Rules and portals change. Check the tender’s own documents and the official source before you rely on any of this.
- World Bank: Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, seventh edition (September 2025)
- World Bank: Revisions of the Procurement Regulations, seventh edition
- World Bank: Standard Procurement Document, Request for Bids: Works, two-envelope (September 2025)
- World Bank: Project procurement framework and standard procurement documents
- World Bank: Procurement notices
- World Bank: Listing of ineligible firms and individuals (cross-debarment)
- Asian Development Bank: Project procurement (Procurement Directive, merit point criteria, local participation, debarment register)
- Asian Development Bank: Tenders
- UN Treaty Collection: Agreement establishing the Asian Development Bank (declarations citing Article 14)
- African Development Bank: Procurement
- UN System Chief Executives Board: UN Global Marketplace
- UNDP: Procurement notices
- UNDP: Quantum eTendering guidance
- EBRD: Procurement policies and rules
- EBRD: Procurement notices
- AIIB: Procurement Policy (as revised through June 2024)
- Millennium Challenge Corporation: Work with us