This review examines the ongoing public procurement reforms in Nuevo León, Mexico: both the progress achieved so far and the many challenges that remain.

This collection of essays on the reform of public procurement law and policy honours the contribution of Sue Arrowsmith as the leading scholar in the field. The book is divided into 3 main parts – on the UK, the EU, and the world – and focuses on central reform themes that have characterised the evolution of public procurement law and policy in the past decades. These include sustainability, complex contracts, review and remedies, electronic procurement, and defence procurement, as well as topics such as debarment, the overall development of EU procurement reform, the very nature of procurement law, or the regulation of UK procurement law after Brexit. The book also covers the dynamic reform process of the EU Procurement Directives and case law, the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement, the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, and national systems including the US, China, Africa, and the UK. The chapters are written by experts in specific topics of procurement reform from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe with backgrounds in academia, legal practice, and international organisations. The reader is provided with a diverse set of insights into the objectives, approaches, priorities, and future direction of public procurement reform.

This report provides information on WHO’s procurement activities in 2020. It covers procurement of goods and services, and also includes COVID-19-related procurement. The intended audience for the report is WHO staff, Member States, external partners and it is also available for general public consumption.

This book examines how international norms for government procurement are reflected in purchasing practices at the national level and whether there is convergence in policies and approaches across countries.

The unanticipated spike in international food prices in 2007-08 hit many developing countries hard. International prices for food and other agricultural products increased by more than 100 percent between early 2007 and mid-2008. Prices for food cereals more than doubled; and those for rice doubled in the space of just a few months. The food price increases were particularly hard on the poor and near-poor in developing countries, many of whom spend a large share of their income on food and have limited means to cope with price shocks. An estimated 1.29 billion people in 2008 lived on less than $1.25 a day, equivalent to 22.4 percent of the developing world population. In addition, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 923 million people were undernourished in 2007. Simulation models suggested that poverty rose by 100-200 million people and the undernourished increased by 63 million in 2008. The World Bank organized rapidly for short-term support in the crisis, launching a fast-track program of loans and grants, the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP). The GFRP mainly targeted low-income countries, and provided detailed policy advice to governments and its own staff on how to respond to the crisis. The Bank also scaled up lending for agriculture and social protection to support the building of medium-term resilience to future food price shocks. The International Finance Corporation responded by sharply increasing access to liquidity for agribusinesses and agricultural traders in the short and medium term, as well as new programs to improve incentives for agricultural market participants. This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group response in addressing the short-term impacts of the food price crisis and in enhancing the resilience of countries to future shocks.