Massive awareness on sustainable public procurement demanded

The government is in the process of implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and this huge task involves massive capacity and awareness building, legal coverage and rephrasing of all procurement documents. Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman, chief executive officer of Bangladesh Public Procurement Authority (BPPA), IMED under the Planning Ministry, informed this at a Policy Dialogue on Bangladesh's SPP Policy held at a hotel in the capital on Thursday, BSS reports.Md. Sakhawat Hossain, director of the BPPA, made an elaborate presentation on the roadmap of BPPA to implement SPP, said a press release.Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) in collaboration with International Trade Centre's (ITC's) SheTrades Initiative, with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), organised the programme to disseminate reports on a survey on SPP Policy to identify policy implementation challenges and opportunities.

Bangladesh has made its public procurement system digitized, though not fully, but a major portion of procurement is now done through the much-known e-GP (electronic Government Procurement) system.

Mirza Ashfaqur said now the government is focusing on implementation of SPP, which is an obligation for achieving target 12.7 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in public procurement. "This needs a massive awareness among all concerned including women entrepreneurs and tenderers," he added.

A steering committee, headed by Planning Adviser, is looking after the implementation. With this view, BPPA is in consultation with the stakeholders and as part of it, the authority is going to conduct further consultations with women entrepreneurs and other concerned sectors.

BPPA will first go for pilot implementation of SPP in six products stipulated in the SPP Policy approved by the government in 2023.

Referring to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's 2023/24 Women's Report, Ashfaqur said, women's entrepreneurship is steadily growing across the globe, and women are becoming increasingly involved in high-growth, innovation-driven businesses. Yet they continue to face unique barriers-including unequal access to markets like public procurement.

As of the most recent data, women own approximately 7.2 per cent of businesses in Bangladesh, according to the Labour Force Survey 2022, that indicates major gender disparity in entrepreneurship in the country, said BPPA chief executive officer.

Despite comprising about half of the total workforce, women are substantially underrepresented in business ownership, he said, adding, "In the global arena, where women own about one in every three businesses, Bangladesh's rate is notably lower, highlighting the need for targeted policies and initiatives to promote women's entrepreneurship and address the barriers they face."

Ashfaqur said this is the reason for which the implementation of the SPP Policy is not only a public sector responsibility rather it is a social commitment.

Ferdaus Ara Begum, CEO of BUILD, presented the survey report highlighting some specific requirements for Women Owned Enterprises (WoEs) to be in business and their participation in public procurement activities.

Survey findings show that 90 percent of surveyed WoEs participate in public procurement, of which 60 per cent favouring the Request for Quotation (RFQ) method, and only 30 percent using the more complex Open Tendering Method (OTM). She urged for massive awareness among all, especially women, to raise awareness.

Diyina Jem Arbo, Policy Lead of ITC's SheTrades initiatives, highlighted a gender responsive monitoring and evaluation framework with a standard definition of women-owned business.

She underscored the need for women entrepreneurs to understand the gender provisions in the public procurement processes and their ways to navigate the process.

Diyina presented an action plan to measure the impacts created by the gender responsive M&E framework. She stressed the output indicators to be SMART to be impactful.

Finally, she stressed the need for an Action Plan side by side with a well-planned Roadmap for this a structured data base from all the PEs in the country is required.

The event was attended by a number of women entrepreneurs, procuring entities, officials of BPPA, development partners to interact on the issue. Women tenderers and entrepreneurs raised the challenges they face in participating in public procurement.