Technical Cooperation to Improve Transparency and Accountability of Public Procurement

in Transition Countries

MICHEL NUSSBAUMERHead of Legal Transition Programme, EBRD

‘UNCITRAL standards for transparency, accountability and good governance’ New York, 17 July 2014

The EBRD Legal Transition Programme

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Objective:

“Improve the investment climate in the Bank’s countries of operations by helping create an investor-friendly, transparent and predictable legal environment”

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Law reform and economic transition progress together in transition countries

Romania

Latvia

UkraineGeorgia

Turkmenistan

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

Belarus

Armenia

Lithuania

Azerbaijan

Montenegro

Bosnia & Herz

Albania

RussiaMoldova

CroatiaBulgaria

KazahkstanSerbia

Krygyz Rep

TurkeyMongolia

FYR Macedonia

Poland

EstoniaHungary

Slovak Rep

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State of core commercial and f inancial law s

Sta

te o

f E

conom

ic T

ransiti

on

Slovenia

Source: EBRD Transition Report 2013

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Transparency safeguards in public procurement laws in transition countries

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How well do national laws guarantee transparency and accountability of public procurement? (2010 assessment)

EU Member States in the EBRD region

Eastern Europe, including Russia and

Georgia

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Sub-standard policies on transparency and accountability in the CIS region and North Africa (2010 assessment)

CENTRAL ASIA

SEMED

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Full EBRD assessment is available at http://ppl-report.ebrd.com

Full EBRD assessment is available at: Full EBRD assessment is available at: Full EBRD assessment is available at: Full EBRD assessment is available at:

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Why reform public procurement now?

• New best practice: what was good for paper-based procurement procedures does not work for eProcurement –

e-commerce with public sector

• Revised regulatory standards:- UN Convention Against Corruption- 2011 UNCITRAL Model Law on Public

Procurement- 2012 WTO Government Procurement

Agreement- 2014 European Union directives on public

procurement and concessions- Updated MDBs Procurement Policies and Rules

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New policy messages in reform context

• Focus: efficiency of procurements without compromise on transparency

• eProcurement tools: utilise to improve transparency of the procurement (and get rid of bureaucracy)

• More professional procurement: qualified officers for better accountability of procurement decisions

• Market access: engage local suppliers, SMEs in particular

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The EBRD & UNCITRAL Public Procurement Initiative

• Designed to promote upgrading procurement laws originally based on the 1994 UNCITRAL Model Law, but now outdated

• Kick – off: May 2011, EBRD Annual Meeting, Astana, Kazakhstan Programme partners

EBRDUNCITRAL

OSCEOECD Anti Corruption Network

Asian Development Bank

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The EBRD UNCITRAL Initiative

The EBRD UNCITRAL Initiative country-tailored technical cooperation projects focus on:

(1) Legislative reform:

• support in drafting modern public procurement legislation

(2) Institution building:

• promoting unrestricted and free access to information on procurement opportunities

• promoting e-Government and e-Procurement

3(3) Regulatory and enforcement capacity• supporting national procurement

regulatory authorities• strengthening national procurement

review bodies

(4) Procurement function development

• promoting professionalism and certification of the procurement officers

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Work in progress: Mongolia

2010 assessment

EBRD – UNCITRAL diagnostic

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First results: Armenia

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Using the UNCITRAL Model Law for a general update: Kyrgyz Republic

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Supporting reforms

• Several countries in the EBRD region are committed to public procurement reforms in order to benefit from implementing new policy standards; however a number of countries remains unresponsive (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) .

• eProcurement is being implemented as a tool to increase good governance in procurement and transparency of procurement decisions in particular.

• Through the EBRD UNCITRAL Initiative projects we learned that:– the 2011 UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement is very valuable

for countries which previously based their legislation on the 1994 UNCITRAL standards (the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan);

– specific instruments promoted by UNCITRAL such as framework agreements and review procedures are globally popular and frequently used by national legislators (Armenia, Moldova);

– thanks to harmonisation with the principles of the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) of the World Trade Organisation the UNCITRAL Model Law standards are increasingly interesting to countries pursuing the GPA accession.

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Contact

Michel Nussbaumer Legal Transition Programme

Office of the General CounselOne Exchange Square

London EC2A 2JN, United KingdomNussbaum@ebrd.com