The Heads of Procurement (HoP) of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) were hosted by the World Bank in Washington, DC, on March 31 and April 1st, 2026 for a mini-HoP Meeting. The Heads of Procurement from the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Black Sea Trade and Development Bank (BSTDB), Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), European Investment Bank (EIB), Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and the New Development Bank (NDB) participated in the two-day meeting.
Below are the meeting’s highlights:
i) The Value for Money Framework, seeking to provide a user-friendly, on-the-mark instrument for clients and peers to conceptualize and implement efficient solutions for projects and programs, has been finalized and is currently published at https://www.adb.org/publications/value-for-money-procurement-mdbs. The framework will be refined and adapted by the individual Banks to reflect their unique operational contexts.
ii) Noting procurement’s growing role in advancing social objectives, including local job creation, inclusion, and equitable market access, the HoP seeks to build on EIB’s social procurement criteria library initiative and undertakes to curate, standardize, and update social procurement criteria and guidance through increased collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
iii) The MDB partnership with MAPS has proved valuable in furthering procurement reform in borrower countries and, with the next MAPS budget cycle starting in 2027, it is considered an appropriate time for HoP to discuss with the MAPS Secretariat on how to further enhance MAPS with focus on both efficiency and the measurement of outcomes.
iv) Building on a successful common learning activity across MDB staff in the fall 2025, the HoP is breaking new ground developing a digital online learning tool for circular public procurement. The tool will feature interactive learning modules, case studies, a quiz, and a completion certificate to standardize training and offer tangible sustainable procurement skills to all relevant staff.
v) To encourage lowering carbon emissions, the HoP has developed a practical low embodied carbon procurement methodology. This initially focuses on construction contracts, can be adapted based on local sustainable market maturity, and will be tested on projects across MDBs.
vi) The HoP has formed two new sub-working groups on Gender Responsive Procurement and Climate Adaptation and Resilience. These two new groups along with existing ones are coordinated by the sustainable procurement working group, together with the joint-MDB Sustainable Procurement Resource Hub (https://www.sppresourcehub.org/).
vii) To enhance its market engagement initiatives as well as better understand private procurement practices, the HoP works diligently on a structured approach to the former and a high-level, principles-based approach to the latter, through dedicated working groups, to produce informative, yet not prescriptive, guidance notes.
viii) Capitalizing on the structured, multi‑tier certification model of the BuildProc program developed with ITC‑ILO and already adapted by several MDBs, the HoP will explore how to advance from transaction-focused training toward a strategic, system‑wide approach.
ix) The HoP will examine how to operationalize institutional cybersecurity requirements to increase consistency and risk mitigation across MDBs, to assist, not substitute, technical cybersecurity experts in their project-level work.
The next HOP will be hosted by CEB, in Paris, and is scheduled for 9-11 September 2026, with a Sustainable Procurement Forum scheduled for 8 September, also to be hosted by CEB. The Forum will include a presentation of selected papers from a global call for policy papers on a) procurement as a driver for climate action, b) circular economy, inclusion and market transformation, c) and government policy innovation and impact measurement. The call was launched by ADB Institute in November 2025.