How to deliver agile sustainable procurement through innovative approaches?

14:00-15:00 CEST

Efficient and transparent procurement is a key determinant for effective development, as it links funding activities.

Procurement in donor-funded projects faces two main challenges: one, effectively enforcing environmental and social safeguards, and two, tending to complex, sometimes evolving needs that are not fully clear at the start of the procurement process.

This session explored

• how agile and innovative approaches to procurement can be introduced to support institutional effectiveness and sustainable procurement
• which preconditions must be met
• how an enabling environment for innovative solutions can be created.

Participants were presented with innovative approaches to addressing these challenges from leading experts in their fields.

We were honoured to welcome world experts in procurement from IFAD, Advokatfirman Runeland AB, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank.

For more information on this session, please scroll down and read our Concept Note and other documents related to the event.

The panel discussed:

• Organizational culture: What is the panelists’ organizations’ stance on innovation in procurement? How this has been incorporated into, or cascaded down to, the project procurement function, and what lessons have been learnt?
• Enabling environment: Which preconditions need to be in place to support innovation through procurement (processes, people and systems, policies)?
• Innovations: What can innovative procurement solutions (promoting or piloting start-ups, research, crowd-funding, etc.) deliver?
• Combining agile and sustainable procurement: How can procurement processes be expedited while at the same time promoting environmental and social standards (ESS) compliance?
• Lessons learned on the ground: What is the track record from organizations that have introduced innovations through project procurement? What challenges did they face?
• Scaling up: Which successful programmes, strategies and knowledge can be shared across the network of MDBs to deliver larger results for project procurement through innovation?