Untied Aid: What is Untied Aid?
Untied aid is financing provided by wealthier countries to developing countries and emerging markets for development projects. It is primarily provided in the form of concessional loans where procurement is "untied," i.e., not contingent upon the purchase of goods and services from the donor country. Untied aid can offer U.S. firms significant business opportunities.
U.S. firms interested in pursuing procurement opportunities associated with untied aid-funded projects should familiarize themselves with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which provides information on projects financed with bilateral untied aid.
A database of project opportunities is maintained by the OECD's Export Credit Secretariat here.
In November 2004, twenty-five members of the OECD that are Participants to the Export Credit Arrangement agreed to a U.S. proposal to open the bidding process for projects in developing countries that are financed with untied aid credits. The two-year pilot agreement commenced on January 1, 2005 and was renewed in November 2006 for an additional two years, i.e., through the end of 2008. For the first time, the agreement sets multilateral requirements for OECD governments to report publicly on the details of their untied aid-financed projects, including the outcome of each bid competition.
These projects are also entered into the USDOC market research database found here.
The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) also maintains a separate database of untied-aid funded projects for the world's least developed countries in connection with the DAC's 2001 recommendation on untying official development assistance. This database can be accessed here.