East Asia and Pacific

China and the World Bank: Partners for reform

In the last ten years, China’s public procurement market has grown tenfold reaching an estimated $270 billion in 2013. Such significant growth has made the improvement of the public procurement system an imperative for the Chinese Government.

In the context of China’s commitment to enhance its procurement system, it is also seeking to accede the World Trade Organization’s Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA). As China looks to necessary procurement reforms, the World Bank has partnered with the Ministry of Finance to support these efforts, which have the potential to have transformational impact.

Myanmar is embarking on a triple transition: from an authoritarian military system to democratic governance; from a centrally directed economy to market oriented reforms; and from several decades of conflict to peace.

Since 2011, leaving behind decades of isolation, fragility and conflict, a reformist government has steered unprecedented political and economic reforms intended to open Myanmar to the global economy, boost growth, and reduce poverty.

As part of its economic reforms, Myanmar seeks to establish a modern public procurement regime and has taken a series of actions including the issuance of two Presidential Instructions and two directives on Public Procurement to establish the basis for an open and competitive public procurement system.

At times, I ask my friends in Nepal, why they would not launch a business, especially when they have funds. A common obstacle for everyone is that they say you have to bribe government officials to even open a business.

Turns out, this isn’t unique to Nepal. According to Drivers of Corruption, a report recently published by the World Bank, developing countries are generally more affected by corruption than other countries.

Here are six charts that show firms’ experiences with corruption around the world. These charts are based on surveys of more than 13,000 firms in 135 countries, by World Bank Enterprise Surveys.

Check out these charts and tell us if you are surprised.

Students in KZ

Change is what development is all about. The hard part, as the well-chosen title of a new World Bank book makes clear, is persuading the right kind of change to put down roots and flourish.

Institutions Taking Root is a collection of success stories about building state capacity in challenging contexts. The common theme of these stories is not success in itself. They move us firmly on from the old ‘cometh the hour, cometh the leader’ cliché. A good harvest takes more than one seed; years of preparation go into the fertile ground that yields it.

The book looks at the committed group of leaders in Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Development who continued to perform key functions during civil conflict. It considers the pool of leaders who have filled key positions inside and outside The Gambia’s Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, and yet have held onto a common and consistent vision of policy and implementation.

Whenever aid and development money is involved, one question consistently emerges: How do you make sure it does not fall on the wrong hands, and be victims of fraud and corruption? This is a question that the World Bank country team in Vietnam and elsewhere has been grappling with. How do we ensure that financing for World Bank projects actually goes to its intended purposes and supports the ultimate goals of eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity?

World Bank country staff in Vietnam realized that previous responses to fraud and corruption have focused too narrowly on individual projects. What are the factors that cause and perpetuate fraud and corruption in the first place? They needed to sufficiently address the root causes of the problem, and not just the symptoms. Despite greater awareness and more open debate about corruption in Vietnamese society, there's no evidence that allegations of fraud and corruption have decreased in the last several years.

To nip the canker in the bud, the Vietnam country team is developing a Strategic Action Plan to Address Fraud and Corruption Risks. The plan identifies broad areas of fraud and corruption concerns, categorizes them, and proposes measures and activities for mitigation. Teams across different World Bank units called “Global Practices” have come together to mainstream and implement the plan into core operations.

Where was the lettuce in your salad grown? How was it cultivated, sourced, packaged and distributed? How many suppliers were involved and who are they? How much energy and water did it take from growing it in the farm to serving it on your table?

These questions might not be the typical things you would contemplate when eating a salad, but rapid urbanization and changes in climate, agricultural, and food production patterns are raising a host of alarming questions for many. How is the world going to sustainably feed more than 9 billion people by 2050, when farm lands are being converted into industrial and commercial use, and extreme weather events are jeopardizing our future resources?

This is a more daunting problem for China, where under-investment in the food industry and environmental pollution have aggravated the situation. A recent official Chinese government report issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Ministry of Land and Resources shows that more than 16% of China’s soil and 19.4% of farm land is polluted, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

A Warli Tribal Painting by Jivya Soma Mashe We are curating a monthly series on Digital Gov. in developing countries. The series seeks fresh perspectives and insights into the policy, institutional and technical dimensions of technology and public management, in understanding how public services are modernized, organized and delivered to citizens and, in supporting openness and public accountability. In the fourth post of the series, we reflect on Fiscal Transparency and Openness in light of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Regional Open Government Partnership Conference, focusing on developments in major middle income countries in East Asia and North Africa.

A recently released Open Budget Survey conducted by the International Budget Partnership (IBP) ranked the Republic of Korea as the top performer in public participation in the budget process. With a score of 92, Korea rose to the top as the only country “that provides extensive opportunities for public participation” (IBP 2012). Of 100 countries surveyed, the average score for public participation in the budget process was 19 out of 100. IBP found that in many countries there are limited, if any, opportunities provided to the public for engagement in the budget process. So what is it about Korea that makes it an exception?

In June 2011, the Government of Mongolia amended the Public Procurement Law of Mongolia (PPLM) to include a new formal role for civil society and professional organizations in bid evaluation and contract monitoring.

During a recent ‘Justice for the Poor’ mission to Vanuatu, our team had an illuminating meeting with a group of forty village chiefs in a community hall. The chiefs are the primary source of order and justice across the many islands within the archipelago. Most of them have received little, if any, formal education, their authority resting on their traditional status within the community.

East Asia and Pacific

China and the World Bank: Partners for reform

Myanmar sees early progress in its public procurement reform

Six Charts on How Corruption Impacts Firms Worldwide

The Seeds and Roots of Change

A Collaborative Approach to Tackling Fraud and Corruption

Encouraging News on Private Sector-Led Transparency and Collaboration in China

Is Technology Sufficient for Fiscal Transparency & Openness? Lessons from East Asia and North Africa

Public Participation in the Budget Process in the Republic of Korea

Voluntarily Tying Government’s Hands: Civil Society Oversight of Procurement in Mongolia

Development practitioners: technocrats, missionaries or diplomats?

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