RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.1/Suppl.1
12 October 2000
(00-4212)
Working Group on Transparency
in Government ProcurementOriginal:  English
TECHNICAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES:  INFORMATION FROM
OTHER INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
(OECD)
Supplement
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.
In consequence, the Secretariat wrote to relevant international and regional intergovernmental
organizations requesting them to provide such information.  The information which has been received
in response from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) wascirculated in document WT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.1.  The current document reproduces the
supplementary information which has been received from the OECD by a communication, dated
9 September 2000.
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Technical assistance projects in the procurement field in which SIGMA  (Support for
Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern Europe) is currently engaged, or
projects that are planned, include the following:
(a) preparation of amendments to public procurement laws in Bulgaria, Romania and
Latvia;
(b) setting up new Public Procurement Offices in the Slovak Republic, Lithuania and
Bulgaria;
(c) advising the Baltic States on how to strengthen their procurement complaints and
arbitration procedures;
(d) providing comparative information on anti-corruption procedures in the area of public
procurement;
(e) setting up a procurement system in Montenegro.
SIGMA has recently completed work, in collaboration with the ILO's International Training
Centre in Turin, on developing a training of trainers course in public procurement.  The course
materials have been translated by several countrie s and are being used in designing and implementing
national training programmes.WT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.1/Suppl.1
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It may be of interest to note other work that the OECD is conducting on government
procurement even though it does not fall into the category of technical assistance in implementing
rules and procedures.  The Development Co-operation Directorate  is undertaking work related to
aid-funded procurement.
• Aid untying :  Agreement on this (via a recommendation focusing on the least developed
countries) will help liberalize aid procurement and increase competition, transparency and
value for money.  It will, of course, also give partner countries greater ownership of the
process.  By and large, there is broad agreement on the text of a Recommendation, but
present work on a mechanism to improve effort sharing among donors is required for
approval and implementation.  On agreement, there will be an open bulletin board
advertising untied aid offers to promote competition and transparency.
• Strengthening procurement capacities in partner countries :  DAC  (Development
Assistance Committee) members agree on the importance of building procurement
capacities with partner countries in order that the latter can increasingly take over fullresponsibility for the procurement process. This work, about to commence, will assess
essential needs and what donors have done and can do to address them.  It will also look
at reducing the multiplicity of donor demands on already stretched capacities as well as
review ways to encourage more firms in developing counties to successfully bid for aid-
funded contracts.
• Corruption and aid-funded procurement :  The DAC is presently reviewing experience
with and the impact of its 1996 Recommendation on this matter.  All DAC members haveintroduced the measures or strengthened procedures as called for by the
Recommendation.  Preliminary findings suggest that an important role of the
Recommendation is the clear and sharp political signal it sends to all that corruption will
not be tolerated and will be dealt with in the strictest manner.  The DAC is presentlyaddressing proposals made through this review to link up efforts in the DAC and
elsewhere in a more concerted and coordinated effort to tackle corruption.
• "Profiles" of DAC members' procurement regimes :  These profiles set out the
essential details of each member's procurement system and have been completed, so far,for the majority of DAC members.  They have the objective of improving transparency
and, on agreement on a Recommendation on untying, will be linked up to the bulletinboard on untied aid offers to provide potential bidders with information on the
procurement rules and procedures of the donor supporting the project in question.
The Working Party of the Trade Committee  examined throughout 1999 and 2000 a series
of indicators of the size of government procurement markets in OECD member and non-member
countries.  The work has concentrated on refining the methodological approaches based on the mainaggregates of the 1968 System of National Accounts and in gathering the necessary national statistics.
The various estimates of the size of government procurement markets for OECD member
countries are disaggregated by level of government, i.e. general government, central government,
local government and social security.  Based on the availability of data for non-member countries, a
first series of market estimates at the general government level was considered by the Working Partyat its meeting which was held on 18-20 September 2000.  Work will continue with a view to
improving the collection of data and the reliability of the results.  Consideration is being given for the
preparation of a publication summarizing the work undertaken.WT/WGTGP/W/20/Add.1/Suppl.1
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For the moment, the programme of work of the Trade Committee on government
procurement does not include activities direc tly involving technical cooperation between OECD
member and non-member countries.  Nevertheless, we consider that our quantitative work will be a
valuable contribution in the context of ongoing efforts made by various organizations to improve the
transparency in government procurement.
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