RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.6/Rev.1
11 September 2000
(00-3503)
Working Group on Transparency
in Government ProcurementOriginal:  English
TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES:  INFORMATION FROM
OTHER INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
UNCTAD/WTO INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
Revision
At its meeting of 22 June 1998, the Working Group agreed to request the Secretariat to
provide information on the technical cooperation programmes of international and regional
intergovernmental organizations in the area of gove rnment procurement, so as to enable the Group to
have as complete a picture as possible of the availability of technical assistance in this field.
The information which has been received from UNCTAD/WTO International Trade Centre
was circulated in document WT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.6.  The present document reproduces the updated
information which has been received from the UNCTAD/WTO International Trade Centre by means
of a communication, dated 22 August 2000.
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Mission and background
ITC is the focal point institution in the UN system for providing technical cooperation in
export promotion and trade development to developing countries and economies in transition.  ITC's
programme of assistance in international purchasing and supply management (earlier named importoperations and techniques) is focused on making systems for the purchase of goods and services to
meet the needs of a country more cost-effective.  One of the major areas of work of this programme is
public procurement.
ITC's efforts in public procurement contribute to its mainstream work in export development
and directly affect the quality of governance in a country.  ITC responds to countries' requests forassistance in public procurement reform by:
(1) Undertaking reviews of the present procurement systems to identify needed
adjustments in the relevant legal, organizational and operational areas.
(2) Providing advice, training and other assistance in designing and implementing
effective public procurement systems to meet the identified needs.
Work is conducted in cooperation with the World Bank and other partner institutions and uses
local staff and local consultancy expertise.  Capacity building is a principal objective of ITC'stechnical cooperation efforts in this area.WT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.6/Rev.1
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While ITC will consider requests for assistance in public procurement activities from any
developing or transition country, ITC actively seeks programme opportunities, especially in the
priority area of assistance to least developed countries.
Since 1979, ITC assistance projects coveri ng public procurement have emphasized
approaches that countries could use to reduce their import expenditures to achieve more positive
international trade balances.  ITC expertise has been instrumental in designing and implementing
projects funded by major multilateral and bilatera l donors such as UNDP, the Swedish International
Development Agency, the Government of Switzerland and others.  Some of the countries benefiting
from this early approach to improve import operations were Angola, Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda , countries in the South Pacific, Sudan, Tanzania
and Tunisia.
To support these projects - and also to extend technical cooperation where such projects did
not exist - ITC has developed a series of technical and training materials addressing various aspects of
procurement and materials management.  These are available mostly free of charge to developing
countries and economies in transition. The materials developed to date include 24 practical guides,
19 case studies and exercises, 12 manuals and directories, a complete three-level commercial Englishcourse for importers, eight import management video packs and two computer-based import
simulation exercises.  ITC also collaborated with the World Bank and the International Labor
Organization in the preparation of an early guide to International Procurement and a recent series of
handbooks for public procurement training.
ITC is committed to providing advice and assistance to countries seeking to improve their
public procurement systems.  However, the traditional "case by case" method of providing
procurement advice through tailored assistance missions and projects has had a relatively high cost
due to the independent analyses needed for each  new project. To try to meet the challenge of
delivering high quality procurement assistance in a targeted and sustainable manner, ITC is changing
its past practice.  Recent efforts of ITC have incorporated new strategic priorities and approaches forcooperation with partner countries.  The new approach involves developing a set of universal tools
and related services to build and operate national capacities for providing procurement training,
consultancy and information support to purchasing organizations.  This more integrated approach will
significantly enhance the response time and cost-effectiveness of ITC's assistance in procurement and
supply management operations.  It will be centred around materials currently being developed by ITC.
Some of these have been jointly developed with the United Kingdom's Chartered Institute of
Purchasing and Supply.  These include:
• The Diagnostic Tools  will be used in assessing capacities and diagnosing problems in the
procurement process at individual organisations.  Separate versions of the diagnostic toolswill focus on the needs of small and medium enterprises and of public sector procurement
agencies.  Collective requirements diagnosed in this manner will enable ITC and local
organizations to design highly specific technical assistance programmes to meet identified
needs through training, consultancy and information support.  It will also be possible tolater measure the effectiveness of these programmes.
• The Modular Learning System  is being developed as the foundation of all future ITC
efforts to build up training capacities in its partner countries covering all stages of thepurchasing and supply process.  Separate versions will exist for use by SMEs and public
sector procurement agencies.  It will be used for implementing either group-based trainingor individual open learning, and will include optional information technology support.
The modular learning system will eventually integrate the full range of ITC's numerous
technical materials and training aids relating to procurement.  These will be made
available through regular ITC dissemination channels, including through the Internet.
Generic basic, intermediate and advanced training courses, to be tailored to specificWT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.6/Rev.1
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country needs, are being developed and piloted to build up the required knowledge and
skills of purchasing managers and staff.
• The Compendium Of Public Procurement Systems  will use existing data to provide a
comparative reference on the scope of the public procurement system in a country.  The
information will be arranged by phase of the procurement process, as defined in thediagnostics and learning tools, for analysis and training purposes.  The information in the
compendium will provide a benchmark against which a country will be able to compare
its procedures to those of other countries (e.g., solicitation methods or contract
management approaches).  This interactive database enables a country to compare its
procurement system to those of other countries and with generally accepted models.  The
compendium is available for viewing on the ITC website www.intracen.org (InfoBase's).
• Special materials for Purchasing and Su pply Management Associations (PSMAs) .  The
PSMAs play a key role in efforts at the national level to upgrade the competencies,recognition and effectiveness of professionals responsible for managing purchasing and
supply operations.  During 1996, ITC produced a handbook for the establishment and
operation of PSMAs.  In collaboration with the International Federation of Purchasing
and Materials Management (IFPMM), ITC is developing a worldwide PSMAs directoryto facilitate the growth of PSMAs.  Direct assistance has been provided to PSMAs in
Hungary, Poland, Romania, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda, mainly through national and
regional projects.
• Public Procurement and SMEs .  Most public procurement systems address in one way or
another the issue of how to provide support for the domestic supplier base.  Improved
techniques for buying goods and services using modern quality standards and business
practices can help improve the efficiency of local suppliers as they compete for
government contracts.  Such improvements in efficiency can enhance trade prospects by
making these suppliers more acceptable vendors to global business partners.  Inefficient
government suppliers provide poor value to their national government, and will beunlikely to engage in any meaningful private sector trading partnerships in the era of
global competition.  For governments, such efficiencies can directly translate into the
acquisition of additional goods and services to meet national needs, funding of higher
priority programmes, or even reduced taxes on the public, which aid development.  The
ITC Guide on Improving Access of Small and Me dium Enterprises to Public Procurement
provides the experience of several countries (India, South Africa, the United States and
Hungary) in using targeted and untargeted assistance to help develop local industry.  Such
assistance includes mentoring programmes, subcontracting opportunities, the payment of
price preferences and premiums, and set-asides for small businesses.
• Electronic Commerce .  An active electronic commerce programme in public procurement
can help develop suppliers into global competitors.  By introducing new technologysolutions in the government-to-business market-place, the government acts as an
"incubator" to help build demand for "state-of-the-art" technology.  The state of the art is
relative to that applied locally in the business sector.  Thus, in one country the use of
email could be state of the art while in another it is making binding contracts over the
Internet.  However, government intervention through procurement policies must be
balanced by the capacity of domestic sellers to make the required changes and remain tocompete in the national public procurement market.  Failure to do this will restrict public
procurement opportunities to relatively few firms.  Such limited competition normally
leads to increase prices to the government  (absent increased competition from abroad)
while it reduces the number of domestic suppliers participating in the business of
government.  ITC is developing a Model Website for use by developing and transitionWT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.6/Rev.1
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countries to start connecting to the World Wide Web.  It will be complete with databases
and document preparation and bid evaluation application programmes.
Specific projects undertaken
ITC has substantially increased its assistance efforts aimed at reforming public procurement
systems and supporting national public procurement policy-making institutions.  This assistance is
being provided through various projects - and usually involves the development of national
procurement guidelines, standard procurement documents and other procurement system elements,
aimed at enhancing the implementation of new national procurement legislation.  Training of public
procurement staff in the application of these guidelines and documents is often a key component of
these projects, financed in various cases through World Bank grants to the countries concerned(e.g., Albania, Kyrgyz Republic and Slovak Republic).  Assistance in public procurement reform
and/or capacity development has also been provided to Belarus, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia,
Uganda, Ukraine, Viet Nam, Zambia and several Maghreb countries.
The theme of greater harmonization of public procurement systems within regional trading
associations is being promoted in several partner initiatives.  For example, the Commission for theUnion Economique et Monetaire Ouest Africain e (UEMOA), as an outgrowth of the Abidjan
Conference, is working with the World Bank and African Development Bank to promote greater
integration of public procurement activities among the member states.  These member states are
Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Guinea-Bissau.  Some proposed
measures of progress being considered include a decrease in the number of direct contracts, the use ofsystematic external audits, and the number of people trained in modern procurement techniques.  ITC
is discussing with COMESA ways to help this regional trade association build the necessary capacity
to begin to harmonize public procurement as a further example of this issue.
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