Working in partnerships

EBRD UNCITRAL Public Procurement Initiative. The LTP and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) have been working together since 2011 under the EBRD UNCITRAL Public Procurement Initiative to promote modern public procurement legislation, initially in the CIS countries and presently across the EBRD region.

We work together with UNCITRAL to contribute to development of modern global legal standards for public procurement and public sales, in particular international best-practice-based legal instruments promoting policy innovation for better regulation of government commerce (Model Law on Public Procurement, Model Law on e-Commerce).

Clearly identified regulatory gaps (UNCITRAL diagnostic) help to unlock reforms with clear priorities to build (i) competitive, (ii) well-governed, (iii) transparent public procurement markets with (iv) offering greater value for money and lower corruption risks to (v) a wide group of market operators, including in the SME segment and women-owned businesses.

In particular, we focus on identifying global best practices for improving market access and creating business-to-government opportunities for SMEs and introducing small business friendly legal instruments (electronic reverse auctions, e-catalogues and framework agreements) to increase the capacity and SME participation in public tenders.

EBRD GPA Technical Cooperation Facility. Since 2014, the LTP has assisted multiple countries pursuing accession to the World Trade Organisation’s 1994 Government Procurement Agreement (GPA). The EBRD GPA Technical Cooperation Facility has provided the framework for structured cooperation with the WTO GPA Secretariat and effective collaboration with the governments in the EBRD region that are interested in or committed to accession to the GPA.

EBRD Open Government Lab. The LTP worked closely with Transparency International in Ukraine on implementation of the e-procurement system ProZorro intended to increase transparency and reduce corruption in public procurement. Learning from ProZorro global success, the LTP sought further cooperation with Transparency International and Open Contracting Partnership to explore the emerging open source technology and develop the OCDS open data standard to suit other jurisdictions globally.

Most recently, the LTP integrated its regulatory standard-setting work with UNCITRAL with Open Government advocacy and works together with Transparency International Ukraine and Open Contracting Partnership on a concept of Open Data Digital Procurement, an all-digital, end-to-end procurement system that is able to exchange open data in real time, building on emerging open source technologies and the latest open data standards, decrease operational costs and shorten the implementation time for governments by operating a network with private e-commerce platforms.