International Procurement Professionals Meet in Dhaka

DHAKA, Nov. 1 (NsNewsWire) — An efficient and transparent public procurement system is crucial for accelerating growth and prosperity of a country, underscored the speakers at the third South Asia Public Procurement Conference 2015 that started today in Dhaka.

The conference brought together procurement professionals from around the world, and especially from member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Public procurement heads, policy makers, procurement experts, contracting and consulting industry representatives, civil society, and academia shared knowledge and experiences of good practices that would enable all the South Asian countries to enhance performance in the public procurement system.

An advanced and well-functioning public procurement system can help increase competiveness, improve service delivery, and boost citizen trust. Efficient and transparent public procurement boosts economic growth by ensuring value for money in the acquisition of goods, services and works by the government budget.  It allows to provide quality infrastructure and service delivery to citizen, while supporting a vibrant demand for the private sector.

“Bangladesh has successfully digitized public procurement in four key government agencies that together spend more than half of the annual development budget. Electronic government procurement is bringing substantial cost savings, eliminating paperwork, and increasing the pace of implementing development works,” said Martin Rama, Acting Country Director, World Bank Bangladesh. ”Senior level participation in the conference demonstrates high level commitment to ensuring efficiency, transparency and accountability in public procurement.”

The discussion centered around the theme “Innovation for Sustainable Procurement Performance” with participants sharing experiences on procurement workforce and professionalization,  electronic-Government Procurement (e-GP), reforming the procurement environment, and innovative tools and methods for performance enhancement. The discussion also covered framework agreements, public-private partnerships (PPP), open data, strategic procurement, and performance measurement.

The Government of Bangladesh hosted the three-day conference, with the support of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. This is the third annual learning and networking event for public procurement professionals and is a follow-up to conferences held in Pakistan in 2014 and in Nepal in 2011.