The Minutes of May 25, 2023 Webinar at Noon GMT

Planned at Noon GMT, the webinar started at noon eight minutes on Zoom and covered essentially this points as follows :

Opening Remarks

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

Mr. Shanker Lal, Lead Procurement Specialist, the World Bank

Ms. Serena Sara Daniela Cocciolo, Economist, the World Bank

Mr. Edwin Muhumuza, Head of Africa, Open Contracting Partnership

Webinar & Q&A (2 hours: 40 minutes)

Closing Remarks

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

Mr. Shanker Lal, Lead Procurement Specialist, the World Bank

Ms. Serena Sara Daniela Cocciolo, Economist, the World Bank

Mr. Edwin Muhumuza, Head of Africa, Open Contracting Partnership

Open Remarks

The Technical Secretary was delighted to greet and welcome all the participants. He then depicted all the recent endeavors of the APPN through the organization of the webinar on May 4, 2023 after having talked of the various programs of the network, namely the sessions, the webinars and the e-GP Focus Groups. Mr. Aftar Touré MOROU informed the participants of the specificity of the webinar as it gathered three languages at once (French, English and Portuguese) with interpreting services and introduced the trainers to the audience, who were Mr. Shanker Lal, Lead Procurement Specialist, the World Bank, Ms. Serena Sara Daniela Cocciolo, Economist, the World Bank and Mr. Edwin Muhumuza, Head of Africa, Open Contracting Partnership. He finally stated how important the theme “Data Analytics and Digital Tools for Public Procurement” was for in public procurement, data collection is key and without their analyses the work is complicated. He invited the participants to be involved fully in the webinar and asked questions for better understanding of the theme.

Training

Mr. Shanker Lal, Lead Procurement Specialist, in his introduction stated straight forward that for The Economist, the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil but data. And that from World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives, it is impossible to have information without data, which shows how crucial it is to have data. In some developing countries, public procurement represents 17%, 18% up to 15%, which implies to improve efficiency of public procurement for public expenditure. Data analytics then comes in to help improve work site and policy formulation. In India, the use of data analytics shows better transparency and better efficiency. With data analytics for example thanks to centralized e-GP system, one can see how many contracts go to SME as the case is on the portal used in India. But data analytics, beyond this simple use can be used as an advanced analytics tool for forecasting demand for frequently procured categories on e-platform; for detecting buyer-seller collusion to identify transactions that indicates buyer biasing competition in favor of a seller; for the detection of order splitting, that is identification of buyers creating multiple orders (Order splitting) that can be clubbed as a single order. It also helps with price analysis that is the analysis with the similar products available on e-platform as well as other e-marketplaces, minimum and maximum trend of the product price as well as product price trend to determine the outliers. It is also useful for technical rejection appropriateness, meaning products and specification comparison of base product versus the product offered in bid. It helps identify vague or irrelevant comments by the buyer for disqualifying sellers during technical evaluation. Another use is for product similarity in order to identify Products with comparable features that offer better market value as well as Products with better specification with similar price. The trainer provided more information available on his presentation through this link World Bank Report: “Using Data Analytics in Public Procurement

Ms. Serena Sara Daniela Cocciolo, Economist at the World Bank said the use of data strengthens public procurement, to improve monitoring and design better strategies to increase transparency. The world spent $11 trillion on public procurement in 2018, amounting to 12 percent of global GDP (Bosio et al. 2022). Given these substantial volumes, public procurement can contribute to several objectives: savings, integrity, economic growth, inclusiveness, and sustainability. It also helps in fiscal savings and efficiency in public procurement as efficient procurement practices and good management practices we can achieve lower prices and lower administrative costs, fight against corruption as it improves integrity and fights diversion of public funds and ensures good use of public resources, enables equitable economic growth as competition and market can generate opportunities for firms. And an inclusive public procurement market can sustain the growth of SMEs. And finally, public procurement matters for the development outcomes and environmental sustainability (Quality of purchases related to service delivery, for example quality of school meals, good planning to ensure timeliness of purchases, for example availability of medicines in hospitals). Green public procurement is a tool for the promotion of the green economy, low environmental costs of procurement and good sustainability outcomes. Procurement Data Analytics (PDA) uses of data to generate actionable insights to create or modify procurement policies and strategies to influence development outcomes. It can be used for evidence-based decision-making and for informing reforms, to monitor public procurement, measure and benchmark procurement performance identify gaps that exist in our public procurement system in terms of efficiency, much time spent on procurement procedure or too high prices to purchase a given product. These gaps can also relate to integrity to fix Using data allows to understand what the factors are and drivers influencing KPIs. Drivers help better design policies to influence final outcomes. With evidence-based policy making, the starting point is to identify gaps and weaknesses. The next steps are identifying suitable interventions, piloting them and testing their impact, and then refine the design and the implementation. This applies for all public policies. Data Analytics (DA) is a tool that can be used at all stages in this reform cycle. It is a tool to identify gaps and weaknesses, and compare suitable interventions, and provide initial evidence on the impact of reforms, new policies, or new strategies, and direct how new policies and strategies should be refined. In public procurement and for all public policies, we need data and evidence because the final effects of reforms is not always obvious. Talking of procurement data analytics tools and applications, Public procurement data is used to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation function of public procurement authorities, build real-time red flag systems. It also helps in evidence-based decision making to identify efficiency and integrity gaps and their determinants, identify areas for targeted actions, systematically rationalize alternative strategies and provide policy recommendations to inform reform efforts and the design of new policies. It is also for transparency and accountability by creating the conditions for meaningfully conducting other activities related to Procurement Data Analytics and by enabling civil society to investigate public contracts and investments. Interactive Data Monitoring Tools-Dashboard help filter public procurement data in order to generate report, graphs and results based around KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in a flexible way and automatize the work of public procurement authorities. She then shared data-driven diagnostics assessing trends, the Kraljic Matrix categorizes goods, services, and works with broadly similar characteristics based on their economic relevance and supply risk, and for which similar procurement strategies can be developed. She continued to talk of quality and openness of data

Discussions et recommandations

C’est avec beaucoup d’intérêt que les participants ont suivi la formation et ont posé des questions pertinentes pour une meilleure compréhension afin d’implémenter la connaissance dans leurs pays respectifs avec l’appui du RACOP et des partenaires techniques et financiers.

En plus des requêtes pour le partage de la présentation du formateur, beaucoup ont souhaité que le RACOP serve de canal entre les pays membres pour le partage d’expériences en termes de commande publique verte afin d’équilibrer les inégalités dans les pays étant donné que certains sont en avance sur d’autres en la matière. Il a été aussi recommandé que le RACOP, au-delà de servir de pont entre les pays francophones et anglophones pour des transferts de connaissances par des pairs, mette en place une commission des APD de mise en relation et de soutien entre les membres. Une autre recommandation a été que le RACOP pilote des travaux  de mise en œuvre au niveau régional, des textes, cadres juridiques et légales tenant en compte ceux de chaque pays afin d’avoir un appui budgétaire régional pour appuyer les pays dans la réalisation de la commande publique durable au niveau national.

Le formateur a répondu aux préoccupations des participants et le Secrétariat Technique a pris bien note des recommandations des participants pour leur étude et mise en application avec le concours des partenaires techniques et financiers.

C’est sur une note de satisfaction que le Secrétariat Technique a remercié tous les participants pour leur engagement et leur participation effective et la formulation de leurs recommandations. Il a aussi remercié les partenaires techniques et financiers disposés à soutenir le RACOP pour une meilleure performance.

Le formateur a, encore une fois, manifesté sa joie et sa disponibilité à accompagner le RACOP par des partages d’outils efficaces et un suivi dans la mise en œuvre.

Le webinaire a pris fin dix heures vingt (10h20) sur une note d’expression de gratitude et de satisfaction d’ensemble.