Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI)

A Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) is a formal notice through which a multilateral development bank borrower or a procuring agency invites consulting firms and individuals to submit brief statements of their qualifications and relevant experience, so that the buyer can identify a shortlist of candidates to receive the full request for proposals.

What is a Request for Expressions of Interest?

The REOI sits at the very start of the consultant selection process. When a borrowing government or an MDB-financed project wants to hire a consulting firm, the implementing agency first publishes an REOI describing the assignment in broad terms, the required experience, and the deadline for submissions. Interested firms respond with an Expression of Interest (eoi), a concise document covering similar past assignments, staff availability, and firm profile, but no pricing and no detailed methodology.

The buyer then evaluates the EOIs and draws up a shortlist, commonly of six firms, who are then sent the full solicitation including the tor and invited to compete under a method such as qcbs. The World Bank's STEP system records REOIs as a distinct notice type alongside Invitations for Bids and Specific Procurement Notices, making them trackable through the public procurement API at search.worldbank.org.

REOIs differ from general prequalification in scope: prequalification qualifies firms for an entire programme, while an REOI qualifies them for a single assignment.

Why REOI matters for bidders

Missing an REOI means missing the entire opportunity, because firms that do not submit an EOI by the deadline cannot be placed on the shortlist and will never receive the rfp. For consulting firms, systematic monitoring of REOI notices across MDB portals and UNGM is the top of the pipeline. Because the submission at REOI stage is short, a firm with a maintained library of past assignment summaries can respond to many notices quickly and sustain a high shortlist rate across multiple banks and UN agencies.

Example

A World Bank-financed urban transport project in Indonesia publishes an REOI on the World Bank procurement portal seeking a traffic engineering consultancy. Six firms submit EOIs describing bridge and highway supervision experience. The implementing agency shortlists four firms and issues the full RFP with the terms of reference to those four only.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an REOI mandatory before every RFP?

For consulting assignments above the formal threshold at most MDBs, an REOI and shortlisting step is the standard practice. Below certain thresholds, a buyer may go directly to a shortlist selected from a prequalified roster without publishing an REOI.

How detailed should a response to an REOI be?

Responses should be concise and focused on similar past assignments. Evaluators at the REOI stage score on demonstrated relevant experience, not on methodology or depth of analysis, so a tight match to the advertised scope matters more than volume of material.

Where are World Bank REOIs published?

World Bank REOIs appear in the public procurement notice search portal and are also trackable via the REST API at search.worldbank.org using the notice type filter for expressions of interest.