World Bank renews and expands FIDIC contracts agreement

FIDIC renews major agreement with the World Bank that will see the global funding organisation use key FIDIC contracts for a further five years.

FIDIC has renewed and expanded a key agreement with the World Bank that means that the global funding organisation will adopt the use of nine FIDIC standard contracts for a further five years.

Under the terms of the agreement, FIDIC has granted the World Bank a non-exclusive licence to refer to the nine major FIDIC contracts for projects they finance and the documents will be used as part of the bank’s standard bidding documents. The contracts include the 2017 Second Edition FIDIC contracts, as reprinted in 2022, which cover a wide range of international construction and infrastructure work. The World Bank’s move represents another key endorsement for the contracts from a major international funding organisation.

FIDIC chief executive Dr Nelson Ogunshakin said: “We really value the strong relationship that has been forged between FIDIC and the World Bank over a number of years and we are delighted that the bank has agreed to adopt our FIDIC ‘rainbow’ suite of contracts and use them as a key part of their standard bidding documents. The use of these contracts creates more certainty in the market as by adopting these contracts on major projects the World Bank is providing an endorsement of the fair and balanced approach that these documents offer to parties on major construction contracts.

“The bank’s move represents further major international market buy-in for our contractswhich includes our recent contract reprints and new editions - and is something that we hope will also influence the supply chain to adopt FIDIC contracts thereby creating even more certainty in the planning and delivery of major international construction and infrastructure projects.

I look forward to continuing to build a stronger collaborative relationship with the World Bank team in the months and years ahead.”

Commenting on the renewal of the bank’s agreement with FIDIC, Enzo De Laurentiis, chief procurement officer at the World Bank, said: “We look forward to continuing to build on the successful implementation thus far of the licence agreement for the 2017 Rainbow Suite and the very productive partnership with FIDIC over many years including in key areas such as sustainable procurement, contract management and capacity building.”