During the week of 22 September 2025, States once again met in Vienna under Working Group III (WGIII)...
The global transition to renewable energy systems will be mineral intensive and, under the current linear economy conditions,...
Transparent, inclusive, and competitive tender processes help governments identify the best investment partners.
The objective of awarding a concession or license through a competitive bidding or tender process is to identify the best contracting party through a sound, competitive, inclusive, and transparent process.
Competitive bids are commonly used for the development of infrastructure projects to promote value for money.
Competitive bidding is also becoming more widespread in the extractive industries, especially where there is already geological information available on a particular mineral or petroleum reserve. The alternative to a competitive bidding process is to award mineral or petroleum rights on a first come, first served basis.
The documentation governing the tender process needs to be well-drafted and comprehensive, setting out the material terms and conditions for agreement, pre-conditions and parameters for the investment and ensuring the tender process is conducted transparently.
For more information on competitive bids and unsolicited bid proposals for infrastructure projects, including guidelines, standardized bidding documents and checklists, see Procurement Processes and Bidding Documents on the World Bank’s Infrastructure Resource Center.
To learn more about the mineral resource tenders, see the World Bank’s Mineral Resource Tenders and Mining Infrastructure Projects: Guiding Principles.
The OECD Procurement Toolbox is an online collection of practical guidance and good-practice tools for improving transparency, integrity, and management across the procurement cycle.
The EPEC Guide to Public-Private Partnerships is published by the European PPP Expertise Centre (EPEC), a Division of the European Investment Bank (EIB). It provides a high-level framework to guide the public-private partnership (PPP) process.
Mining Contracts – How to Read and Understand Them was produced by a diverse group of 14 experts from Africa, Asia, North America, South America, and Europe to help policy makers, civil society, citizens, and the media understand the often complex and opaque terms of mining contracts. This guide explains in layman’s terms the principal features of a contract, compares different approaches to key issues, and supplies the context and background necessary for non-specialists to understand how contracts are negotiated and what they say.
Available in French and English.
Oil Contracts – How to Read and Understand Them is the sister-guide to the Mining Contracts – How to Read and Understand Them resource. It is a plain-language guide for non-specialists on the often complex and opaque terms of oil contracts. It was produced to help people understand the terms governments negotiate with oil companies, including revenue sharing, operations, and contract pitfalls.
The report presents ten innovative policy ideas to modernize mining taxation systems. It emphasizes approaches that improve fairness, capture windfalls, and better align with sustainable development. The ideas are informed by emerging global norms and transition needs. For negotiators, it supplies a toolkit of fiscal design options to insist on fairer revenue-sharing arrangements.
