Participants Guide For Breakouts

Asia Pacific Procurement Forum 1st CONSULTATIVE MEETING

Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines August 24 to 25, 2009

POSSIBLE ISSUES: IDENTIFYING PROCUREMENT CHALLENGES Provided below are topics (and sub-topics and issues) identified in similar earlier exchanges for which issues/challenges will have been identified at the morning plenary session:

1. Assessing Procurement Systems and Evaluating Performance •

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Country Systems – use, quality, benchmarking need to increase overall understanding of the OECD-DAC tool integration of public procurement with public financial management system (procurement plan) piloting for procurement performance benchmark among selected procuring entities strategies for developing reliable information on procurement performance

2. Developing Procurement Reform Strategies • High degree of uncertainty about how best to use the OECD-DAC assessments as an • • •

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input to procurement reform strategies Share examples of different countries on procurement reform progress Procurement Legislation (legal and policy) Implementation Capacity Sustainable Procurement (environmental and social considerations)

3. Strengthening Procurement Management • Relationships between central Public Procurement Authority (PPA) and rest of •

• • •

government Possible conflict of interest between PPA and their parent bodies the capacity of PPAs management of public perception (e.g. status, agency website, PR, public awareness campaign) adequately funding PPAs

4. Improving Procurement Execution • develop on-line management information system (MIS) for public procurement • e-Procurement (including suppliers training) • Co-existence of e-Procurement and traditional approach • PPP • New Contracting Methods (eg. framework and performance based)

5. Performance Monitoring & Oversight •

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Relationship between o PPA and executing agencies o PPA and accountability institutions (internal/external audits, communities etc) o PPA and anti-corruption agencies Developing a monitoring model that is suitable for PPAs

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Anti-Corruption/Governance Risk Management (e.g. performance monitoring, technical & financial audit) Procurement and Civil Society

6. Building Procurement Capacity • • •

• •

• •

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How can national capacity-building programs and public procurement training strategies be reinforced? Sustainability of capacity building efforts Establishing effective linkage between national and international training institutions Any good practices (OECD-DAC, PCDC-UNDP, other country examples etc) Mandating periodic procurement training for practitioners with appropriation of necessary funding resources. Encouraging private providers and national institutions to provide relevant training. Donors to finance the involvement of international training institutions in supporting the national procurement training systems. Working together towards formulating a scheme for national attestation of procurement professionals. Assessing capacity --- benchmarking --- and monitoring progress.

7. Forum Management and Deliverables •

Management organization and workings o Secretariat/Steering Committee/Advisory Board/Working Groups -- topical, regional, sub-regional, other options o Role of partner countries and donors o Selection process for partner country representatives/alternates o Role of consultants for implementation support o others

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Deliverables o Need for action plan or controlling agenda to set priorities and monitoring framework o types of deliverables -- country/regional/sub-regional reports/thematic reviews/progress reports/other and periodicity o regional/sub-regional workshops and/or conferences o mid term plenary conference or other mid-term monitoring or stock-taking mechanism o training mechanisms - web-based, thematic workshops, seminars, peer-to-peer exchanges, toolkits, templates, other o use of web - library of electronic resources (types?), ongoing network/dialogue listserv, blogs, 'helpdesk' and/or e-newsletter (periodicity?), other o progress measurement and monitoring -- benchmarks, stocktaking, and how to measure what actions covered by Forum focus o other

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