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Looking for advice: The politics of consulting services procurement in the World Bank

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  • McLean, Elena V.

Abstract

Scholarship on development aid investigates how donors’ and recipients’ political and economic interests interact to weaken effectiveness of aid. These influences have been traced at various stages of the aid cycle – from aid commitment and disbursement to impact evaluation. Yet, development assistance programs provide not only financial resources for recipient countries, but also human capital. Specifically, development aid agencies often rely on experts’ and consulting firms’ knowledge to enable project development and implementation. Such knowledge can increase recipients’ capacity to implement domestic reforms, thereby spurring economic and social development. However, transfers of human capital may experience similar pressures that influence flows of financial capital and reduce their effectiveness. This article aims to investigate whether donors’ and recipients’ interests sway the flow of human capital provided through development programs. I focus on the procurement process for consulting services funded by World Bank development aid, and show that formal institutional requirements for consultant selection leave room for recipient governments to pursue domestic and foreign benefits from procurement decisions. In addition, my analyses show that governments’ pursuit of such benefits has tangible consequences for aid effectiveness: when recipients favor domestic consulting firms, projects take more time to complete and tend to receive lower outcome evaluations.

Suggested Citation

  • McLean, Elena V., 2023. "Looking for advice: The politics of consulting services procurement in the World Bank," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:161:y:2023:i:c:s0305750x22003072
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106117
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