Instructions for the Use of this Facility

This is a facility for selecting firms for shortlists in International or National Shopping per the World Bank’s Procurement Guidelines, Section 3, paragraphs 3.5-3.6.  It is limited to shopping for currently prevailing off-the-shelf office technology.  For details, please click on Policy Governing this Facility.

Users of this site would normally be staff of Borrowers implementing World Bank financed projects.  They would select the web page for their country. From there, firms may be selected from the listings of the different manufacturers. The minimum number of firms and manufacturers to be selected are indicated for each country. The firms chosen for the shortlist should, of course, all be competitors, i.e., it would not be acceptable to reach the minimum length of the shortlist by selecting the same firm with different addresses, or be selecting a manufacturer's own office plus one of its business partners or dealers. However, if the minimum length of the shortlist allows it, two or three different business partners or dealers listed by the same manufacturer may be selected.

Users would have the responsibility to confirm with each selected firm (at least verbally) that it still represents the manufacturer or OEM seller, is competent and interested in bidding for all goods and services to be contained in the prospective procurement package, and was not earlier involved as a consultant in the same project.

There is obviously no necessity for a shortlist to contain only, or any of the, firms listed at this site.  However, firms not listed are subject to the review process as applicable per the Loan Agreement.  This would also be the case for firms added to the list due to the lack of a sufficient number of manufacturers/OEM sellers listed for a country on this web site.

The shortlist may thus be a blend of listed and unlisted firms.  In this case, only the unlisted firms would be subject to a review requirement.  A shortlist comprising less than the required minimum number of firms would equally be subject to the World Bank’s review requirements.  However, a shortlist comprising the indicated minimum number of firms, all selected via this web site in accordance with the rules, can be assumed as having the World Bank’s automatic concurrence.

If a manufacturer's office is shortlisted, but assigns the actual bidding to one or more local dealers, partners, or distributors, it must make the nomination before the actual bidding starts. If this nomination then is for a firm that is already nominated for the shortlist on behalf of another manufacturer, the additional nomination is permitted, but it will neither count towards the minimum of three manufacturers nor the minimum number of firms required for the shortlist for the country.

As long as the manufacturers/OEM sellers in a shortlist represent at least two different countries, the World Bank’s diversity requirement for International Shopping is deemed as fulfilled.  This would be the case irrespective of whether the actual firms invited or submitting the bids (such as distributors or dealers) are all located in the Purchaser’s country.  This site may obviously also be used for establishing short lists for National Shopping. For the results of shopping to be valid, at least three actual bids/quotations must be received.