Bali, Indonesia: 22 November 2011 - 24 November 2011.

This conference aims to provide a forum to share ideas, experiences, discuss common issues on developing and implementing e-GP, an important component of e-Governance, and explore opportunities of collaboration among ADB's developing member countries and ADB on promoting and implementing e-GP in the region. Follow us on twitter @eGPMAP

For more information please visit:  click here.

During the 7th Annual Conference on Government Procurement of the Americas in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, held from 18 to 20 October 2011, took place the annual INGP members’ private meeting. In this context was presented a proposal for reforms and new features to the EGP MAP – Observatory tool for application to the next edition.

Network members raised comments and requirements for the platform and the services it provides. Among others, the following were noted:
The platform must be versatile and usable, so as to enable inclusion and process a large amount of data and information
Include new topics, data and functions.
Statistical information and performance that makes up the Map would develop a new set of indexes for e-GP.
It is critical that information to be managed directly by members of the INGP.
Ability to generate standard and custom reports.


To meet the requirements listed, the proposal is to include the following features:
1. Each INGP member will have access to a content manager, and will be responsible for the information for the country.
2. Expanding the platform with the following characteristics:
a. New components (sustainable procurement, SMEs)
b. Project catalog
c. Standardized reports
d. Custom Reports
e. Statistics, graphs and comparisons
f. New data and cross rates

3. Use of social networking and flexible reporting formats.


During the meeting, representatives of INGP members updated the information on their countries and those responsible for generating information. This is the first requirement in order to consolidate a reliable and useful information tool. Additionally, we asked the Network members to:
Monitor the maintenance of information.
Keep the current information updated (GDP, budget execution information, purchase data, system data).
Definition of new components of the e-GPMAP - Observatory.
Provide feedback about the tool and the proposed features.

Under the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Asia Pacific Procurement Partnership Initiative (APPI), ADB’s Central Operations Services Office (COSO) commissioned a Government Procurement System and e-GP Profiles Survey to evaluate the state of e-GP readiness and implementation in its developing member countries (DMCs).

A brief report on the submissions and the overview of the Survey findings (e.g. number of responding DMCs by region, questionnaire parts completed, etc.) can be viewed by clicking on this link http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/65167831?access_key=key-5u3ced1ssklgc6vha3s
Access to the “Country Profiles” webpage is presently restricted temporarily to public procurement officials in ADB’s DMCs who had responded to the Survey. This page restriction will be eventually removed, and the page contents made accessible to all.
This initial exercise may lead to the creation of a dynamic database of country public procurement profiles to house basic facts about each public procurement system of ADB developing member countries. This database, which will facilitate sharing of latest developments and practices with respect to public procurement in the region, will be updated on an as needed basis by the relevant public procurement authority or government agency in charge of each participating country .read more ...

Tonio Fenech, Minister for Finance, Economy and Investment (MFEI) launched the eProcurement solution which will revolutionize the way by which Government conducts public procurement. Following a tender procedure, European Dynamics SA was awarded to deliver the eProcurement solution, which covers the full lifecycle of public procurement, from the publishing stage to award and execution of contracts.

The eProcurement solution will enable actual tender bids to be submitted securely on line as well as new possibilities such as ‘reverse auctions’ where bidders compete to offer the lowest price. These solutions have been proven to result in better value for Government.

For more information on MEPA please visit:  click here.

ChinaSoft International Ltd. announced the successful win of the bid for a Government Procurement Management System project by the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Finance (MOF). Being one of the largest domestic comprehensive providers of software and information technology services, ChinaSoft has been a prime provider of total application system intergradations participating in many e-government project developments.

By undertaking the government procurement management and trading system project for the MOF, ChinaSoft will further enhance business capacity, technology development efficiency, system integration capability and large project deliverability during future e-government project construction in China.

For more information please visit:click here.

John Collington talks about many issues such as centralization of purchasing, procurement post-OGC and opportunities for SMEs.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are one step closer to conclude a collective e-procurement agreement, thanks to the ongoing cooperation among the gulf member states in the fields of e-government.

At the 8th GCC e-Governments’ heads committee meeting held in Kuwait. It was agreed that member states shall exchange information and experiences about framework agreements to conclude a collective e-procurement procedure at the level of the Gulf States.

For more information on MEPA please visit:  click here.

Budget and Management Secretary Florencio B. Abad said that electronic bidding of government contracts and other electronic transactions will commence in 2011 through the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS).

He also said national government had saved 555 million from newspaper advertisement of bid opportunities alone since it started to implement PhilGEPS in 2001. The use of PhilGEPS has likewise leveled the playing field in public procurement as even small and medium sized enterprises have a chance participating at and winning government contracts.
He said that within this year, PhilGEPS will already be capable of conducting electronic bids, accepting electronic payments and facilitating other electronic transactions.

For more information please visit:click here.

In 2004, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) started the revision of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services. To that purpose, the working group formed was given a flexible mandate to identify the issues to be addressed in its considerations, including providing for new practices in public procurement, in particular those that resulted from the use of electronic communications.

The Working Group held its nineteenth session in Vienna, from November 1 to 5, 2010. The session was attended by representatives of 32 of the States members of the Working Group, 6 international organizations and 2 non-profit groups. At its nineteenth session, the group continued advancing its work on the elaboration of proposals for the revision of the Model Law.

For more information please visit: click here.

The fourth edition of the MEPA Prize organized and carried out by Consip and the Ministry of Economy and Finance rewards Public Administrations and Enterprises having achieved surprising results, in terms of economic, organizational and process benefits, by using Consip’s Electronic Public Marketplace (MEPA).

A Commission of experts has awarded the following winners for the 2010 edition:
Public administrations category
University of Naples “Federico II”
INAIL – Territorial Directorate of Sardegna
S. Giovanni Addolorata Hospital and Municipality of Trapani (ex aequo)
Municipality of Rome
Enterprises Category
Misco Italia
GIannone Computers
Supplier Training Desk Category
Confartigianato of Palermo and Confcommercio of Bari (ex aequo)
Municipality of Rome

For more information please visit:click here.

China has eased rules that discriminate against foreign companies bidding for government contracts, European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said in Beijing.

European companies won’t be penalized if they don’t have locally registered intellectual property or technology, he said after the conclusion of the EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue. U.S. officials after talks with China’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan also confirmed that the rules on procurement would be relaxed.
This is a “major step forward,” de Gucht said. “This means that European firms no longer have to become ‘Chinese’ in terms of their intellectual property” to bid on public contracts.
The EU and the U.S. protested Chinese rules on so-called indigenous innovation, introduced in November 2009 that give preference in bids for government projects to products containing Chinese-developed technologies.

For more information please visit: click here

The General Services Administration's decision last week to move its e-mail program to a Web-based system modeled on Google's popular Gmail program is part of a major government drive to increase federal use of cloud computing.

The GSA is the first federal agency to make the Internet switch, and its decision follows the Office of Management and Budget's declaration last month that the government is now operating under a "cloud-first" policy, meaning agencies must give priority to Web-based applications and services. Government information-technology contractors, many of them based in the Washington area, have been anticipating the shift for months, trying to position themselves for future work.
The Obama administration has said that cloud computing will allow more people to share a common infrastructure, cutting technology and support costs. But some technologists have warned that Web-based software may not be as secure as systems built for a dedicated purpose. And the programs often depend on stable network connections.
The push for Web-based computing is part of a broader government effort to consolidate its 2,100 data centers by at least 40 percent by 2015. .

For more information please visit:
click here.

The government will introduce an online tendering process by the end of January to ensure transparency and accountability in public procurement. “We will introduce e-tendering initially for 17 offices of four government entities,” said Planning Minister AK Khandker.

In the first phase, tender invitation, processing and making contracts with the bidders will be carried out online, the minister said at the launch of an awareness campaign on public procurement rules in Dhaka.
The Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the planning ministry organized the campaign in collaboration with Bangladesh Centre for Communication Programs (BCCP).
For more information please visit:
click here.

The WTO Committee on Government Procurement, on 7 December 2010, adopted a decision that invites Armenia to accede to the Agreement on Government Procurement on the basis of a final coverage offer that was circulated to the Committee on 8 November together with Armenia’s draft Procurement Law. Director-General Pascal Lamy welcomed the decision as “good for Armenia, good for the Agreement on Government Procurement and good for the WTO system”.

Armenia's accession to the Agreement will take effect thirty days after the deposit of its instrument of accession with the Director-General, and following adoption of the draft law. The decision completes a process of negotiations that began with Armenia's application for accession to the Agreement just over a year ago, on 4 September 2009.
Director-General Pascal Lamy welcomed the decision, he said that “Participation in the GPA brings real benefits not only in terms of access to other Parties' markets for procurement of goods, services and construction services, but also in the form of enhanced competition and transparency in the Party's internal markets.”
For more information please visit:
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Analiza (www.analiza.cl), the new Business Intelligence platform of ChileCompra processes and extracts data from the ample database of www.mercadopublico.cl and compares information related to Chile public procurement since 2007. The tool is particularly useful to media and was presented by Felipe Goya, CHileCompra Director to a group of journalists as part of a dissemination program about the tool and its functionalities.

Goya said “if you take into account that each of the 95 thousand users of Mercado Publico requires specific information on public procurement we find ourselves with different perspectives. On one we generate monthly reports with global figures on public procurement, however these reports do not take into account the needs of each individual user and it is not feasible to generate 95 thousand separate reports. On the other perspective we want to make all of our information available online and a tool that allows users to generate reports on specific information requirements, that tool is Analiza”.

Goya highlighted the checks and balances concept inherent to any public procurement system and the role that media and civil society have in the proper use of this system.

For more information please visit:
click here.

Technical staff from the Logistics and Information Technology Secretary (SLTI) of the Planning Ministry (MP) will train managers and procurement officers of public entities in different regions of the country, on policies adopted by the Federal Government regarding the procurement of products through “green bidding”. The initiative is part of the National Training Course on Sustainable Public Procurement.

Sustainable procurement considers environmental, economic and social criteria in all stages of the bidding process, making government procurement an instrument of environmental protection for the country.
For more information please visit:
click here.

The US government could save an estimated $500bn over the next decade by undertaking a progamme of supply chain optimisation, it has been claimed.

According to a new economic report released by the Technology CEO Council (TCC), the federal government can save over $1tr by 2020 by using technology to reduce waste, decrease duplication and attack fraud and abuse.
The TCC report, entitled One Trillion Reasons, stated: "A $500bn savings opportunity exists by consolidating the government's myriad supply chains. This would also render the government's procurement process far more transparent, helping to strengthen public trust." "Our report contains straightforward, proven ways to pare back $1tr from the deficit while increasing productivity and enabling sustainable competitiveness," said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Inc
For more information please visit:
click here

Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, localities and enterprises nationwide are encouraged to take part in the trial project of an online bidding application so as to improve their operation efficiency and raise the popularity of the method, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Deputy Minister Dang Huy Dong said that the trial programme proves the Government's determination to boost transparency and fight corruption during the bidding process, and increase the efficiency of public investment projects.
Le Van Tang, director of the Bidding Management Department, said that "the direct contact between project owners and bidders is unnecessary and it also means that there is no opportunity for corruption."
Online bidding would stimulate ministries and agencies to invest further in information technology infrastructure and develop electronic transactions, Tang said. This is also a significant step in the process of developing e-Government.
For more information please visit:
click here

A bill which allows for the publication of government procurement opportunities on a freely accessible website was unanimously passed by Guyana National Assembly.

While piloting the bill through the House, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh said that the government has undertaken several measures to bolster the procurement process in the country. He stressed too that Guyana has modern procurement legislation which often leaves outsiders in awe.

The minister said the passage of the bill would be the first step towards achieving e-procurement.

For more information please visit:
http://www.stabroeknews.com/2010/stories/07/27/house-greenlights-procurement-on-web/.

Microsoft and Consip Spa, Italy’s IT services and procurement agency, have signed a Security Cooperation Program (SCP), the first such agreement struck by Microsoft with an Italian entity. Through the agreement signed by Danilo Broggi, CEO of Consip Spa, and Pietro Scott Jovane, CEO of Microsoft Italia, Consip will provide consultancy and support to Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance in the management of the Microsoft software purchased on behalf of Italian government bodies.

Another 44 institutions worldwide –ministries, national security agencies and CERTs (Computer Emergency Response Teams) –participate in the program.

The SCP is based on the cooperation between Microsoft and Governments and public bodies in charge of preventing cyber-attacks and entails the sharing of information that will increase the effectiveness of the processes that ensure the security of systems and software.

For more information please visit:
http://www.eng.consip.it/on-line/en/Home/Pressroom/articolo2535.html.

This article results from interviews to IT managers of five public agencies in Spain, at different levels: ministries, city halls, autonomous regions. The content reviews the experience accrued after implementing virtualization and cloud computing projects.

The officers interviewed differentiate both definitions: vistualization applies to infrastructure , while cloud computing refers to computer services such as applications.
Virtualization consists in creating several virtual serves within one serve, in a way that the computer resources are more efficient. IAAS (infrastructure as a service). Cloud computing is the access to applications from a browser and the web. SAAS (software as a service).

For more information please visit:
http://www.socinfo.es/contenido/revistas/pdf65feb20/p16-21virtual.pdf.

TIn 2004, the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) started the revision of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement of Goods, Construction and Services. To that purpose, the working group formed was given a flexible mandate to identify the issues to be addressed in its considerations, including providing for new practices in public procurement, in particular those that resulted from the use of electronic communications.

The Working Group held its eighteenth session in New York, from 12 to 16 April 2010. The session was attended by representatives of 30 of the States members of the Working Group, 5 international organizations and 5 non-profit groups. At its eighteenth session, the group continued advancing its work on the elaboration of proposals for the revision of the Model Law.

For more information please visit:
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/V10/531/91/PDF/V1053191.pdf?OpenElement.

The Directorate-General for Informatics (DIGIT) has recently announced that a new version of Open e-PRIOR, the open-source version of the e-PRIOR (electronic PRocurement, Invoicing and Ordering) platform has been published on the Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations (OSOR.eu).

Based on the success and the positive response received on the technical sneak preview published in November 2009, the Open e-PRIOR team has been working on adding the functionality foreseen under the IDABC (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens) programme, as well as taking on feedback received by different parties.

The new version of Open e-PRIOR delivers an embedded PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement Online) Access Point, which provides a great opportunity for Customers wishing to participate in the PEPPOL pilot. Through the use of this Access Point, Customers will be able to connect to their Suppliers by exchanging Invoices over the PEPPOL network. For this purpose a PEPPOL test client is also being provided in the package together with a detailed Software Architecture Document.

For more information please visit:
http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/315303.

China will submit a new proposal by mid-July to the World Trade Organization to join the WTO government procurement agreement, which regulates trade in public-sector purchases.

Chinese membership in the voluntary agreement is keenly awaited by Beijing's partners, who say the scale of government purchases in China's economy is potentially huge.

Yi Xiaozhun, vice-minister of commerce, told WTO members that China would make the offer before the next meeting of the global trade body's government procurement committee.

For more information please visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65141I20100602.

Procter & Gamble announced they will measure the environmental sustainability of its suppliers by measuring energy use, water use, waste disposal and greenhouse gas emissions. P&G currently spends $43.8 billion annually with about 75,000 suppliers around the globe.

Procter & Gamble announced they will measure the environmental sustainability of its suppliers by measuring energy use, water use, waste disposal and greenhouse gas emissions. P&G currently spends $43.8 billion annually with about 75,000 suppliers around the globe.

For more information please visit:
http://www.pgsupplier.com/environmental-sustainability-scorecard.

The search has been announced, for a strategic partner to provide business and technology support for business continuity and incremental improvements to the service.

The partner will be expected to work on projects including interoperability of software, implementation of new technology and creating a single-point-of-contact helpdesk.

The eProcurement Scotland service has grown to include around 100 organizations over the past three years, ordering £8.6bn worth of services for the public sector. The service says growth of between 30% and 35% is expected over the next 24 months.

For more information please visit:
http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:136903-2010:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0.

Seeking to optimize and improve the productivity of suppliers, public servants and citizens that utilize Paraguay’s Public Procurement Information System (SICP), a new version has been implemented since January 2010.

Through the new electronic portal, it is evident the work carried on by the public procurement authority DNCP in over 300 public entities, sub national governments and municipalities, while providing online access to all information related to government purchasing.

This tool, totally developed in-house by DNCP officers using open software technology, will allow citizens to better oversee Government’s use of taxpayer funds.
By the end of 2010 it is expected for the SICP to fully implement the following features:
- Electronic tracking of contracts
- Electronic signature
- Electronic offering
- Electronic purchasing orders
- Business intelligence
- Integration with other public management systems

For more information please visit:
http://www.contrataciones.gov.py/.

Consip, the Italian Public Procurement Agency together with the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance, has recently awarded the Prize on “Sustainable Projects and GPP 2010”. This is the second edition of the Prize with the aim of rewarding both public administrations and enterprises that have achieved important results in terms of environmental sustainability.

The assessing Commission was also composed of members from the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry for Economic Development, Confindustria (entrepreneurs association) and Enea (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development).

Four awards have been assigned in the following categories:

1. Central Public Administrations: Corte dei conti (Court of Audit)
2. Local Public Administrations: Province of Rimini and Municipality of Trevi (Perugia) ex aequo
3. Large enterprises: Ceramiche Supergres SpA (ceramics)
4. SME: Mengozzi Rifiuti Sanitari SpA (health wastes)

For more information please visit:
http://www.consip.it/.

Xchangewales were delighted to receive a GC (Government Computing) Award in the category of 'Delivering Efficiencies'. The GC Awards recognise excellence in Public Sector I.T. The 'Delivering Efficiencies' category celebrates the achievements of those projects that demonstrate clear efficiency gains - particularly sustainable efficiencies - for their organizations.

The xchangewales electronic tools and web-based services help to improve efficiency, increase productivity, stimulate greater collaboration between buyers and lowering the cost of doing business. It is for these benefits that the xchangewales programme has been recognized.

Jane Hutt, Minister for Business & Budget said: “This is a great achievement: I am delighted that the work of xchangewales has been recognised at the GC Awards. The xchangewales portfolio of electronic procurement tools and web-based services allows the Welsh Public Sector to get best value for money, create efficiencies and gain greater benefits more quickly.”

For more information please visit:
http://www.xchangewales.co.uk/.

The Logistic and Information Secretary (SLTI) of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Administration, has launched a web portal on the priority topic of sustainable government procurement.

The web portal targets public servants that work on public procurement and government suppliers of goods and services. The website provides information on regulation, best practices, definitions and training events.

The head of the SLTI, Rogerio Santana, highlighted the importance of green procurement. In January, the Ministry of Planning issued regulatory norm Nº 1 to oversee the usage of sustainability criteria on procurement of goods and services for the federal government.

For more information please visit:
http://cpsustentaveis.planejamento.gov.br/.

The European Commission has announced a review of public procurement laws. The Commission has said change is necessary to cope with new e-procurement practices and to respond to more demand for public-private partnerships.

“The transition to electronic procurement poses new challenges: the technology to support e-procurement is now in place. National and regional e-procurement platforms are developing and thereby delivering tangible benefits to contracting authorities and suppliers.

Furthermore, the Commission's Directorate for Internal Market and Services states that there is a need for greater flexibility in procurement rules and more speed in processing deals, given that public bodies increasingly want to use private investment to fund major projects.

For more information please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/smn/smn57/index_en.htm.

The National Public Procurement (INCOP) Institute in close collaboration with the National Higher Studies Institute (IAEN) launched the first e-course about the National Public Procurement System.

Victor Hugo Cruz, representing INCOP, highlighted that approximately 2,200 public servants have been trained so far by the two organizations.

He added, “With the e-course we will train all of the public officers in charge of procurement in their particular agencies, the approximately amount to 60,000. If we add our suppliers that are almost 100,000 we will have an important number of persons trained in this particular area of expertise.

For more information please visit:
http://www.compraspublicas.gov.ec/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=544&Itemid=101.

PanamaCompra 2.0 positions Panama among the cutting edge technological innovators in Latin-America. This is a step forward towards achieving President Ricardo Martinelli plan to reduce bureaucracy and increase effectiveness in the public sector.

The system seeks to guarantee transparency and efficiency in contractor selection; verion 2.0 certifies the process making it easier, faster and efficient.

PanamaCompra 2.0 is comprised by a integrated software solution platform that allows all the public procurement cycle to occur online; benefitting users, buyers, suppliers and citizens.

For more information please visit:
http://www.panamacompra.gob.pa.

The General Services Administration on Thursday launched two pilots from its Better Buy Project, a collaborative forum used to collect public feedback on how to improve the federal acqusition process. The initiative relied on social media tools to solicit innovative ideas that a small group of officials might not otherwise dream up.

"During the BetterBuy Project's first phase, it was incredibly exciting to see citizens collaborate in real-time on ideas central to GSA's mission," said Mary Davie, assistant commissioner for the Office of Assisted Acquisition Services in GSA's Federal Acquisition Service and the lead for the BetterBuy Project. "Now we can put those ideas into action and continue collaborating throughout the acquisition process to frame better requirements which will result in more creative and innovative solutions."

Depending on the end result, a Better Buy-style collaboration tool also may prove useful for improving other government functions.

For more information please visit:
http://www.betterbuyproject.org/.

As a priority issue on the 2010 Strategic Plan for ChileCompra, this first campaign will focus on the implementation of main definitions of sustainable procurement in the public sector.

“Through this campaign we want to give our users ready to use tools that allow them to implement adequately the concept of sustainable procurement within public procurement”, said Veronica Valle, Chief of the Client Division. She adds “Throughout this year we will assist our users with this type of activities, supporting constant improvement in their procurement”.

As a general definition, sustainable development seeks to solve population needs without compromising the ability to solve needs of future generations. In this view, sustainable procurement not only takes into account economic variables, but also social and economic factors.

For more information please visit:
http://www.comprassustentables.cl.

The Office of Government Commerce’s (OGC) Centre for e-Auctions recently set out how it intends to help support saving the taxpayer up to £270m by the end of 2011 through a rolling schedule of e-auctions.

Their Forward Plan aims to influence over £900m of public sector spend on third party goods and services over the next two-years, and the OGC is currently urging public sector organisations to get involved in this already successful programme.

E-auctions, sometimes called reverse auctions or procurement auctions, allow suppliers to bid against each other online in order to win a contract. They involve factoring in both price and quality measures to arrive at the most competitive bid and can deliver highly competitive pricing and, often, considerable savings compared to existing contracts.

For more information please visit:
http://www.ogceauctioncentre.co.uk/home/how-we-work-with-you/future-eauctions/.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded IBM a services contract to modernize the system that federal agencies and their suppliers use to source equipment, supplies, information technology (IT) and telecommunications services. The award has a contract value of $74.4 million over an eight-year period.

IBM will work with the GSA to design and develop a standard IT architecture that will support the agency's Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE), which is used by hundreds of thousands of civilian and defense employees, as well as companies doing business with the U.S. federal government.

The project will include the integration of nine key GSA applications into a single system -- based on open source software -- designed to simplify the entire acquisition and procurement process.

For more information please visit: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/29436.wss.

The State Agency on Procurement of Azerbaijan and World Bank’s specialists discussed prospects of electronic procurement system in the country.

Agency’s director Iskander Chadirli says that they would like to introduce system of electronic state procurement already in 2010 but this project is a component of e-Government Program in Azerbaijan.

“Nevertheless, today the Parliament is considering a document containing additions and amendments to legislative acts. This document also has a point on addition of e-procurement article to the Law on State Procurement,” Chadirli said.

In particular, it is supposed to switch to e-format of purchase of tender documentation and submission of tender bids.

For more information please visit: http://abc.az/eng/news_12_02_2010_42581.html.

The Asia Pacific Procurement Forum Consultative Meeting held at the ADB Headquarters last 24 to 25 August 2009 endorsed the establishment of a platform for exchange of experiences and best practices in procurement reforms among the ADB’s DMCs and donor partner organizations.

In response, ADB is currently setting up the Asia Pacific Procurement Partnership Initiative (PPI), a US$1.3 million ADB technical assistance that will focus on developing collaborative initiatives among DMCs.

As part of its initial activity, the PPI is currently conducting an internet-based needs assessment survey to capture the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders, implementers and development actors in the public procurement reforms. Opinions and needs can be included in the design of the PPI activities and its website.

For more information please visit: http://adbprocurementforum.net/ .

The Malaysian Government electronic procurement system, ePerolehan, has won the eINDIA award for the government-to-business (G2B) initiative for its innovative eBidding module. The eBidding module has helped reduce government expenditure with savings of between 20 per cent and up to 40 per cent of the actual allocated budget.

The module was first introduced in 2006 to help achieve the Ministry of Finance vision towards providing innovation and efficiency in public sector procurement.

eBidding adopted the concept of reverse auction, where shortlisted government suppliers compete with each other, by offering their lowest prices in a real-time and online bidding platform in order to secure a government contract.

For suppliers, the advantage of using the eBidding module comes from a faster procurement cycle which also leads to faster payments.

For more information on eINDIA awards and Malaysia eBidding please visit: www.eindia.net.in.

Brasil Planning Ministry regulated the use of sustainability standards for procurement of goods, services and works. Rogerio Santana, Secretary of Logistics and Information Technology of the Ministry Planning said, “These rules will cause a market adjustment; all suppliers will have to provide products that comply with our requirements.” Santana said the government can use its enormous purchasing power to influence these changes in the market.

TPublic works will be developed taking into account savings in maintenance and operation; reduced electricity and water consumption; as well as materials with low environmental impact. Another requirement is origin certification of all timber used in public works, to avoid usage of illegal wood.

The Federal Government also recommends that goods acquired should be non-toxic, biodegradable and recycled; with no dangerous concentration of materials such a chrome or cadmium.

For more information please visit: www.comprasnet.gov.br.

Accela, Inc., the leading provider of government software, announced the availability of Accela Automation® 7.0, the newest version of its flagship enterprise application. The new release's innovations in data management, geospatial mapping, and mobile technology are designed to boost the ability of governments to streamline critical tasks while offering greater self-service capability for citizens via the Web.

In an era that requires governments to do more with less and improve transparency, Accela Automation 7.0 facilitates more citizen-centric, performance-based government that brings traditional counter services directly to the public.

Accela also announced the availability of Accela Mobile Office, a new product designed to extend the processing capabilities of Accela Automation 7.0 for field-based operations; it offers touch-screen capability for ease of use.

For more information please visit: www.accela.com .

In the past three years, the European Commission and several public authorities in Europe have launched a number of initiatives that stimulate the public procurement of innovations and stimulate innovative public procurement itself. These include Green Public Procurement GPP, e-Procurement, social considerations, variants in procurement, technical dialogue or forward commitment procurement methodologies, as well as Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) or research oriented public procurements.

Stakeholder and expert communities, training and guidance are being developed. To start building a European critical mass in this field, there is a need to facilitate the networking and exchanging of best practice among public procurers and relevant stakeholders. This conference aims to promote a connected community of stakeholders and identify possible joint actions.

For more information please visit: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/pcp/events_en.html.

The MeTTeG conference intends to bring together researchers and practitioners active in the area of electronic government with a focus on the role played by the information and communication technologies. It provides a forum for participants from different perspectives and disciplines to present innovative methodologies, technologies and tools, share experiences and lessons learned from case studies, and discuss challenges. read more ... Public administrations made great effort to provide more sophisticated E-Government services. While strategies, methodologies and realisation of E-Government services vary significantly between the various actors and stakeholders, the alignment of IT with the processes and objectives of the service providers plays an increasing role in service management. A further challenge is how to enhance the dissemination, accessibility and acceptance of E-Government services by citizens and companies. Deadline for submissions of papers: March 14 For more information please visit: http://conferences.cs.unicam.it/metteg10/call-for-papers/.

A free online public procurement course designed to help smaller firms bid for the £220 billion of public sector contracts awarded each year was launched jointly by Small Business Minister Lord Davies and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne.

The course, 'Winning the Contract', shows participants how to identify business opportunities to supply goods and services to the public sector, explains the public procurement process, and demonstrates how to submit tenders. It has helpful hints and tips to guide and inform businesses on the bidding process, and where to find public sector contract opportunities.

"Small and medium-sized businesses are the engine-room of our economy. We want them to harness the spending power of government to grow their businesses and create jobs. This new free course will help those businesses to compete effectively for government contracts, locking in the recovery and strengthening businesses throughout the country.", said Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Bryne.

Winning the Contract is available online as a training course which all businesses, regardless of size and sector, can access free of charge. It is part of a series of joint initiatives by the Office of Government Commerce and Department for Business aimed at making the government procurement market clearer and simpler.

For more information on winning the contract please visit: www.businesslink.gov.uk/procurement.

Open e-PRIOR (electronic PRocurement, Invoicing and ORdering) has been published as open source by the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT) of the European Commission. The software is made available at the OSOR Forge, the open source software development platform of the Commission.

The software is aimed at public administrations that wish to try out electronic procurement, including cross-border procurement.

The software is meant to bridge the legacy systems used by public administrations and the systems of their suppliers. João Rodrigues Frade, one of the IT architects involved with e-Prior, explains that "Public authorities can use Open e-Prior to manage their procurement processes electronically. They can use it to receive catalogues digitally, they can submit their orders on-line and they can manage their invoices this way, simply by exchanging electronic business documents."

You can download it for free by clicking here.

The MDB Community of Practitioners of Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) was successfully launched during the III Global Conference on Electronic Government Procurement held from November 9 – 11, 2009 at the IDB Conference Center in Washington, DC.

The event co-sponsored by the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, served as the launching pad for a new network of practitioners looking to exchange best practices and lessons learned in the implementation of e-GP systems. For three days 180 participants representing 70 countries, discussed challenges faced during different stages of e-GP implementation. Countries with incipient levels of e-GP shared its experiences with some of the most advanced countries in the topic, strengthening technology transference and knowledge sharing in which the community of practice is based upon.

The conference had participants from 44 developing countries, representing a little over half of the attendance. Additionally 22 out of 48 speakers also came from developing economies, making the event to be a true forum for south to south cooperation between practitioners on the early phases of e-GP implementation. Participants of the III Global Conference on e-GP will comprise the initial membership of this community of practice that intends to provide a virtual space to consolidate information and tools such as policies, guidelines, best practices, training modules, e-GP solutions, and software, as well as facilitate dialogue among the countries. This dynamic portal (www.mdbegp.org) created to serve as the community’s main platform will publish news, papers, case studies, reports and other documents related to e-GP implementation.

During the III Global Conference on Electronic Government Procurement Capacity building, regulatory framework, standardization and interoperability among other issues were named as the future challenges that practitioners will face in e-GP implementation.

Government officials and experts from 70 countries discussed these and other topics along three days of keynote presentations, breakout sessions and roundtables that served as a forum to identify advances, trends and challenges among practitioners. Lack of one single model for e-GP was one of the common concerns for e-GP reform that participants addressed. They stressed the need to use lessons learned from other countries to find the model that better suits each country’s needs. Two leading companies in the industry exposed government participants to challenges, trends and the state of the art in electronic procurement driven by private sector companies.

Another frequent issue raised was the political leadership required to enact long term procurement reform. Several hours were devoted to discuss best practices to present and showcase the benefits of e-GP systems in order to gain political will towards e-GP implementation. Change management, strategic approach and new technologies in e-GP also were important topics that participants and speakers expressed interest on. The III Global Conference on e-GP had 40 presentations from speakers and panellists that constitute an invaluable source of knowledge and information about the challenges and trends on e-GP implementation around the world. For documents and presentations on the Global Conference on Electronic Government Procurement please visit the post-conference website (http://events.iadb.org/calendar/eventDetail.aspx?lang=en&id=1457)

There is a growing demand worldwide for the strengthening of public procurement systems (e-GP). As approximately 15% of GDP is processed through them, their efficiency and effectiveness can play a critical role in a country’s development process.

The introduction of e-GP in country government procurement systems is one of the most powerful vehicles available for promoting the reforms needed to achieve high standards of transparency, accountability and efficiency.

Over the past decade, developing countries have made progress toward incorporating information technology in their country systems. However, the impact of the reforms has not been significant as the efforts have been carried out in isolation.

The Multilateral Developments Banks (MDBs) have formed a working group to promote the introduction of e-GP systems in its borrowing member countries.
See www.mdb-egp.org for more information.

The III Global Conference on Electronic Government Procurement will take place at the headquarters of the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC from November 9 – 11, 2009 and will be co-sponsored by the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The event’s agenda is available on the website: www.e-gp.net. Two hundred participants, ranging from government officials, academics and e-GP experts, from eighty countries are expected to take part of the event.

The International Public Procurement Conference (IPPC 4) is a global forum that aims at gathering public procurement practitioners, researchers and academia from all countries to share their experience, knowledge as well as to discuss critical issues related to public procurement. Since 2004, the Conference has been taking place on a bi-annual basis and is hosted by a different government each time (2004 – Florida, USA; 2- Rome, Italy; 3- Amsterdam, Netherlands). In August 2010, the 4th IPPC will be held in Seoul, South Korea.

This Forum is also an opportunity for those interested in public procurement to present research papers. Selected papers will be published in the Journal of Public Procurement (JoPP) and in a edited book that will be distributed at the end of the conference. The 2010 theme is “Towards New Frontiers in Public Procurement.”

More information on the various possible paper topics and on the conference in general is available on the website:http://www.ippc2010.kr/index.php

At the beginning of 2003, an e-GP working group composed of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the African Development Bank (AfDB), The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank was created under the Multilateral Development Banks Procurement Harmonization Process. Since its creation, the group has worked towards achieving a higher degree of harmonization in the individual institution’s approach to provide technical advice and support member countries in developing e-GP strategies and solutions.

The working group has decided to launch a new MDB e-GP website as a way to provide a single platform, where updates regarding e-GP related topics are available. Under the toolkit section of this website, strategic guidelines are available for government officials, as well as all other readers, interested in implementing e-GP in their countries. The e-GP Map tab highlights the countries where strategies are currently implemented. There is also a space where materials from past forums are accessible and where future forums are announced.

The key contacts of the MDB e-GP websites are Tomas Campero, e-Procurement specialist (IDB), Knut Leipold, e-Procurement specialist (World Bank), Yinguo Huang, e-Procurement specialist (ADB) and Gabriel Maro, e-Procurement specialist (AfDB).