7 Advisory Services for Multilateral Development Banks

Last Updated: November 2, 2026

Table of Contents

• How Advisory Services Fit the Multilateral Development Bank Model
• MDB Project Preparation: Turning Policy Priorities into Investable Pipelines
• Infrastructure Project Bankability and What Makes a Project Financeable
• Public-Private Partnership Advisory: Structuring Risk Between State and Sponsor
• MDB Procurement Guidelines for Advisory Services: What Governments and Firms Must Know
• Deliverables, Timelines and Responsibilities Across the Engagement Lifecycle
• Measuring Advisory Impact and Value for Money
• Preparing Your Request for Advisory Support
• Frequently Asked Questions

How Advisory Services Fit the Multilateral Development Bank Model

Advisory services for multilateral development banks are the technical assistance, policy advice and project preparation work that turns a government’s development priorities into financeable programs. Russell Duke’s sovereign advisory work bridges policy vision and financial execution.

Multilateral development banks, or MDBs, do more than lend. They provide development assistance that helps governments build institutional capacity, prepare projects and mobilize financial resources from capital markets and donor countries.

The distinction matters. A loan without project readiness fails. A policy priority without a pipeline stays a document.

MDBs sit alongside bilateral agencies and development finance institutions, but their shareholder structure gives them a different mandate: regional cooperation, crisis response and long-term development outcomes rather than single-donor priorities.

The sections below cover what governments and firms typically buy, how engagements run, and how to judge whether the money moved the needle.

MDB Project Preparation: Turning Policy Priorities into Investable Pipelines

MDB project preparation is the stage where a national strategy becomes a set of appraised, costed and structured projects that lenders can act on. It is the single highest-use point in the advisory chain.

Most governments have no shortage of strategic priorities. The gap is project readiness: feasibility studies, environmental and social assessment, land and permitting status, and a credible financing plan. For a strategic guide to securing financing for large-scale development, see Securing Financing for Large-Scale Development.

A practical preparation sequence looks like this:

• Screen the pipeline against strategic priorities and bankability
• Commission feasibility and technical studies for shortlisted projects
• Assess environmental, social and governance requirements early
• Draft the financing structure and identify co-financing sources
• Confirm government support, guarantees and approvals
• Package the project for appraisal

Watch out: skipping the screening step and preparing every project on the list spreads budget thinly and leaves none of them ready. Depth beats breadth at this stage.

Infrastructure Project Bankability and What Makes a Project Financeable

Infrastructure project bankability means a project can service its debt from its own revenues or from a credible, contracted government payment stream. Financeable is a stricter test than feasible.

A technically sound project can still fail this test. Lenders price political and execution risk, not engineering elegance.

The criteria that decide bankability in practice:

• Revenue certainty: tariffs, availability payments or offtake agreements that hold up
• Risk allocation: who bears demand, construction, currency and political risk
• Legal and regulatory footing: enforceable contracts and a stable framework
• Sponsor strength: balance sheet and track record
• Sovereign support: explicit, documented and budgeted

A common mistake is treating bankability as a finance team problem. It is a structuring problem, and it is decided long before the term sheet. Readers who want to go deeper can explore structuring bankable projects in emerging markets.

Public-Private Partnership Advisory: Structuring Risk Between State and Sponsor

Public-private partnership advisory is the work of allocating risk between the state and the private sponsor so that each party carries what it can actually manage.

The state usually retains political, regulatory and, often, demand risk. The sponsor takes construction, operating and, where it has control, demand risk. The negotiation is about the edges.

Three practical rules for PPP risk allocation:

• Never transfer a risk to a party that cannot price it; you will pay for it twice
• Write the termination and change-in-law provisions before the commercial terms
• Build in a dispute path that does not require the project to stop

Where advisory adds most value is the governance layer. Projects abandoned when administrations change often lacked contractual continuity and institutional ownership. For practical strategies, see how to execute PPP projects. Advisory can help design for that, but it cannot substitute for political commitment.

MDB Procurement Guidelines for Advisory Services: What Governments and Firms Must Know

MDB procurement guidelines for advisory services set the rules for how governments select consultants and how firms win assignments. They reward preparation more than relationships, and the practical detail is where most borrowers and bidders lose time.

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The typical selection routes are quality-and-cost-based selection, quality-based selection for complex or highly specialized assignments, least-cost selection for standard assignments, and direct or single-source contracting in defined circumstances such as sole-source expertise or emergency response.

How the process actually runs, from both sides:

• Identification and notice. Assignments are advertised through the institution’s procurement portal and, for larger contracts, through the borrower’s national system and other official channels. Firms register, set up alerts, and monitor the relevant country and sector.
• Shortlisting. Borrowers shortlist a defined number of eligible firms based on expressions of interest, relevant experience, and key personnel. Eligibility rules on nationality, conflict of interest, and debarment apply and are checked.
• Request for proposals. The RFP sets out the terms of reference, evaluation criteria and their weights, the data sheet, and the required forms. Technical and financial proposals are usually submitted together and evaluated in sequence, with the financial envelope opened only for technically qualified proposals.
• Evaluation. A committee scores technical proposals against published criteria, typically methodology, work plan, key personnel, and firm experience, before financial scores are combined under the chosen selection method.
• Contract award and negotiation. The successful firm negotiates the contract, including deliverables, payment milestones, and any conditions, before signature.

Common mistakes firms make:

• Proposing a team the firm cannot actually field, or naming key personnel who are not available for the assignment period
• Writing methodology that ignores the borrower’s institutional capacity and the local delivery context
• Skipping or mis-stating the conflict-of-interest declaration and eligibility forms
• Treating the terms of reference as a formality rather than the scoring blueprint
• Missing the submission format, page limits, or deadline requirements, which are pass/fail

What governments get wrong:

• Terms of reference so broad that no proposal can be scored fairly or compared consistently
• Evaluation criteria published late, weighted vaguely, or not matched to the scoring sheets
• No budget realism attached to the scope, which produces proposals that cannot be delivered
• Compressing the procurement timeline to hit a fiscal-year deadline, which weakens the shortlist

For firms seeking to become providers, the general sequence is to register on each institution’s portal, build a track record through smaller assignments and subcontracting, and respond to expressions of interest with evidence.

Deliverables, Timelines and Responsibilities Across the Engagement Lifecycle

Advisory engagements follow a recognizable lifecycle, and knowing it lets both sides plan. The phases below are typical rather than fixed; scope and duration vary by institution and assignment. To see what a real sovereign advisory engagement looks like, read what a sovereign infrastructure advisory engagement looks like.

Phase	Typical Duration	Lead Responsibility	Core Deliverable
Scoping and terms of reference	4-8 weeks	Government / MDB task team	Approved scope and budget
Procurement and contracting	8-16 weeks	Borrower with MDB oversight	Signed contract
Inception	2-4 weeks	Advisory firm	Inception report and work plan
Diagnostic and analysis	8-16 weeks	Advisory firm	Technical and financial assessment
Structuring and documentation	12-24 weeks	Joint	Financing structure and draft agreements
Implementation support	Ongoing	Joint	Monitoring reports and adjustments

Measuring Advisory Impact and Value for Money

Measuring advisory impact means tracking whether an engagement moved a project toward financial close and left the borrower more capable, not whether the report was well received.

The metrics that hold up, grouped by what they actually tell you:

• Project readiness: projects reaching appraisal, board approval, or financial close; the share of the pipeline that becomes financeable
• Time to close: elapsed time from engagement start to signed financing, compared with a stated baseline
• Capital mobilized: private, concessional, and guarantee financing attracted per project, and the leverage achieved per unit of advisory effort
• Institutional capacity: documented processes, trained staff, and handover materials that remain after the engagement ends
• Policy adoption: whether recommended reforms were enacted, and at what stage they stalled
• Replicability: whether the government can run the next project without external support

A common mistake is measuring outputs, workshops held, reports delivered, person-days billed, instead of outcomes. Workshops are not impact, and a well-attended event is not evidence that a decision changed.

A workable approach is to agree a small results framework at inception: a baseline for each indicator, a target, a data source, and an owner. Review it at each milestone rather than only at close.

Be honest about attribution. Advisory is one input among many, and political will, macroeconomic conditions, and counterpart capacity often matter as much.

Watch out: an engagement that produces an excellent report but no decision, no financing, and no capacity transfer has not delivered value for money, however strong the deliverable looks.

Preparing Your Request for Advisory Support

A strong request for advisory support states the problem, the decision you need to make, and the constraints you operate under. Vague requests attract vague proposals. For practical guidance, see the Request for Proposal for Infrastructure Advisory Services.

Before you issue anything, confirm:

• The specific project or policy decision the advisory will inform
• The financing objective and target sources
• Your institutional capacity and who will own the work internally
• The procurement route and the rules that govern it
• A realistic budget and timeline tied to your fiscal cycle
• The evaluation criteria and their weights, published upfront
• Conflict-of-interest and confidentiality requirements

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Most governments do not lack projects. They lack the structuring discipline to make those projects financeable, and that gap is where advisory work earns its place. Russell Duke provides strategic advisory services to governments, institutions and infrastructure sponsors, bridging policy vision and financial execution through sovereign infrastructure, PPP and capital markets expertise. If your pipeline is stalled between strategy and financial close, get in touch with Russell Duke.

Frequently Asked Questions

What advisory services do multilateral development banks provide?

MDBs provide technical assistance and advisory services that cover project preparation, feasibility studies, public-private partnership structuring, policy advice, capacity building and implementation support. These services help governments move from strategic priorities to projects that can attract financing. Advisory work is usually separate from lending and is delivered through trust funds, donor-supported programmes or the bank’s own administrative budget, with deliverables such as project readiness assessments, transaction structures and institutional strengthening plans.

How do governments access advisory services from a multilateral development bank?

Governments typically approach an MDB through the country office or the relevant sector department, often during a country strategy dialogue. A formal request should set out the development objective, the project or reform concerned, the expected deliverables, the counterpart institution and the intended timeline. MDB staff then assess eligibility, funding availability and alignment with the country partnership framework before agreeing on terms of reference and a delivery modality, which may involve a trust fund, a recipient-executed grant or a bank-executed programme.

What makes an infrastructure project bankable for a multilateral development bank?

Bankability rests on a credible revenue or availability mechanism, a sound legal and regulatory framework, clear land and permitting status, a realistic cost estimate and a risk allocation that lenders can accept. MDBs also look at the sponsor’s capacity, the government’s fiscal space and the project’s development impact. Advisory services strengthen these elements during project preparation, which is why early technical assistance often determines whether a project reaches financial close or stalls at the concept stage.

What should a government include in an MDB advisory services request?

A strong request states the policy objective, the specific project or reform, the responsible ministry and counterpart team, the decisions the advisory work must inform, and the timeline tied to budget or procurement cycles. It should also identify existing studies to avoid duplication, confirm counterpart funding or in-kind support, and describe how the government will use the outputs. Clear terms of reference aligned with MDB procurement guidelines for advisory services speed up appraisal and reduce delays during contracting.