May 4, 2023 Webinar Minutes

1.      Benin

2.      Burkina Faso

3.      Burundi

4.      Cameroon

5.      Congo

6.      Comoros

7.      Côte d’Ivoire

8.      Gabon

9.      Guinea

10.   Madagascar

11.   Mali

12.   Morocco

13.   Niger

14.   Central African Republic

15.   Democratic Republic of Congo

16.   Tunisia

17.   Senegal

18.   Togo

19.   Technical and Financial Partners

Mauritania

Djibouti

Algeria

(Equatorial Guinea)

Scheduled for eight o’clock (8 a.m) GMT, the webinar began at eight six minutes (8.06 a.m) GMT on Zoom and essentially covered the following points:

Opening Remarks

APPN Secretary General : Mr. Aftar Touré MOROU (5 minutes)

Trainer

Farid Yaker : Expert in Sustainable Public Procurement/ Sustainable Consumption and Production

Webinar (2 hours 40 minutes)

Closing Remarks

APPN Secretary General: Mr. Aftar Touré MOROU (5 minutes)

Mr. Farid Yaker,  Expert in Sustainable Public Procurement/ Sustainable Consumption and Production (5 minutes)

A reminder of the items on the agenda was given, and then the General Secretary took the floor for his opening remarks.

Opening Remarks

The Secretary General spoke at 8:06 am (8:06 am) to give his speech that gave the history of the webinars that the Technical Secretariat began by organizing on February 22, 2022 and continued on May 18, 2022 and June 9, 2022 for a total of 229 participants before the one on May 4, 2023 that brought together 201 participants. He then recalled the themes covered by the three webinars, including “Professionalization of public procurement through training of trainers” and “Framework Agreements and Government Electronic Marketplace”. Speaking of the theme of May 4, 2023, which is “Sustainable public procurement/green public procurement”, he highlighted its relevance especially vis-à-vis the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) since it would cover almost 12 of the 17 SDGs. He then pointed out that it was in keeping with the importance of the theme that the Technical Secretariat, with the unwavering support of the World Bank, asked the expert trainer, Mr. Farid Yaker, to train the RACOP member countries. The Secretary General, Mr. Aftar Touré MOROU thanked, the World Bank for its constant support and in turn the technical and financial partners who continue to support the APPN. He urged them to have faith in the growth of the network and eventually urged participants to follow and ask questions to better understand the theme for not only their own edification but also for the evolution of public order in Africa and on the international stage.

Training

The trainer, Mr. Farid Yaker, was very pleased to be there, given the welcome he received and the enthusiasm shown by the massive participation of members of the network.

In essence, it meant that public procurement, as an instrument to support public policy, is not new because it started already in the 19th and 20th centuries and addressed issues of social justice mainly for disabled people in the States-United States of America “In 1840, President Martin Van Buren of the United States of America issued a decree establishing a 10-hour workday for those working under government contract.” And in Britain, “After the First World War, the British government introduced a program for the employment of former disabled military personnel, whose products were favored in government procurement.” In 1992, at the Rio Summit already, in Chapter 4 of Agenda 21, we could read in point d) Leadership through public procurement, 4.23; at the Johannesburg Summit in 2002, in Chapter 3: 19. c), it could read that “Governments should promote public procurement policies that encourage the development and dissemination of green goods and services”.

Mr Farid Yaker pointed out that every purchase has an impact on the environment and society, and contributes to pollution and greenhouse gases. “Every purchase has hidden impacts on human health, the environment and society throughout the supply chain”. By 2050, he says, there will be more plastics than fish in the water. He also mentioned that growing demographics, with the emergence of the middle class and the development of urbanization, are increasing the negative impacts on health, as “More than 80% of the world’s economic activity is concentrated in cities”. However, sustainable public procurement is not all bad news. It has economic benefits (quality, delivery times, operating and maintenance costs throughout the life cycle, supplier diversity, transparency and innovation), environmental benefits (climate protection, efficient use of resources, pollution prevention, waste reduction, natural resources and deforestation & biodiversity) and social benefits (health and safety, working conditions, equal opportunities, fair wages, workers’ rights…).

The importance of sustainable public procurement is such that UNEP (United Nations Environment Program), the European Union and the World Bank have given it definitions respectively. For UNEP, “Sustainable public procurement is a process by which public organizations meet their needs for goods, services, public works and services in order to optimize resources throughout the life cycle by generating benefits not only for the organization, but also for society and the economy, while significantly reducing negative impacts on the environment.” For the European Union “Green government procurement (GPP) is defined as a process by which public authorities seek to acquire goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle relative to goods, services and works having the same primary function that would otherwise be purchased.” And for the World Bank, “Sustainable procurement is a process that integrates sustainability considerations throughout the procurement process to achieve optimal cost-benefit ratio in achieving development goals.”

The objectives of the 2013-2022 Panorama were unveiled in five points, including the provision of a global overview of the current state of sustainable public procurement (ODA) in national governments, highlighting progress in areas such as development, the implementation and monitoring of ODA policies, the assessment of progress towards UN SDG 12.7, the creation of a broader vision of ODA practice by identifying how private sector actors are engaging, understanding the functioning of international organizations; universities and networks supporting the development, implementation and research of ODA policies and broadening understanding of drivers; ODA barriers, needs and expectations around the world, reflecting the views of stakeholders in a range of countries, organizations and professions.

Mr. Farid Yaker mentioned that the role of the DA as a political instrument is growing and that the DA is being adopted globally and that in the policies dedicated to the DA, social objectives are becoming more important with 56% resource efficiency, 36% reduction in energy consumption, 36% mitigation of climate change, 31% reduction in waste and 22% e clean technologies and eco-innovation. It is also 53% promotion of SMEs, 36% anti-corruption and transparency, 31% protection of groups at risk, 24% human rights and 24% compliance with ILO conventions. In addition to these figures showing the rather important role of the PA, he informs that in OECD countries, public procurement is increasingly being used to achieve a variety of policy objectives, and the environment and finance sector is leading the development of sustainable procurement policies and the implementation of these policies with the support of the governments providing a range of support measures.

He also spoke about global trends, including a continued increase in ODA engagement, with environmental issues remaining priority issues with a growing interest in the socio-economic dimension of ODA. Concluding on national policies, he noted an increase in policy and regulatory development in support of DA at all levels, with sustainability issues addressed in DA policies also evolving, the socio-economic dimension being increasingly present. Here, he mentions that public authorities with economic/financial responsibility play a leading role, underlining the strategic importance of the DA and that the monitoring of the DA is also increasing, thanks to electronic platforms

Discussions and recommendations

It was with great interest that the participants followed the training and asked relevant questions for a better understanding in order to implement knowledge in their respective countries with the support of the APPN and technical and financial partners.

In addition to requests to share the trainer’s presentation, many hoped that the APPN would serve as a channel between member countries for sharing experiences in terms of green public procurement in order to balance inequalities in countries as some are ahead of others in this area. It was also recommended that the APPN, in addition to serving as a bridge between English and French speaking countries for peer-to-peer knowledge transfer, establish an ODA commission to connect and support members. Another recommendation was that the APPN pilot implementation work at the regional level, texts, legal and legal frameworks taking into account those of each country in order to have regional budget support to support countries in achieving sustainable public procurement at national level.

The trainer responded to the participants’ concerns and the Technical Secretariat took note of the participants’ recommendations for their study and implementation with the help of technical and financial partners.

It was on a note of satisfaction that the Technical Secretariat thanked all participants for their commitment and effective participation and the formulation of their recommendations. He also thanked the technical and financial partners willing to support the APPN for a better performance.

Once again, the trainer expressed his joy and willingness to support the APPN by sharing effective tools and monitoring implementation.

The webinar ended at 10:20 a.m. on a note of gratitude and overall satisfaction.