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Reforming Public Procurement -- Syquia
communicate these to the implementers in the field and train them on the new procedures, the overall
effort may fail. For this reason, capacity building should not only be seen as training, but also as a
communication tool. In the latter sense, capacity building should push the advocacy efforts
undertaken in Step 2 further, so that knowledge and ownership of the reforms are further cascaded
from the central government and its line agencies, down to the various local government offices and
agencies. Considering that the procurement practitioners in a procuring agency are really the enablers
of the procurement reforms, the overall impact of these reforms depends upon the level of
professionalism present within the respective agency. As such, capacity building should eventually
lead to a fuller professionalization program for procurement officials in government, covering three
major areas, namely:
1. Human capital (skills development through short certificate courses);
2. Information capital (e.g., accessible and comprehensive information systems); and
3. A climate for positive action (which basically covers employee motivation and satisfaction).
After evaluating the country’s procurement environment, developing a strategy to push for reforms,
establishing the legal and institutional frameworks, and then training the enablers in the line agencies
and local offices, the next step (Step 5) is to assess how effectively the strategy has been undertaken,
how much of the reform agenda was actually implemented in the field, and the overall impact of the
procurement reforms in the country. As the BIS is predominantly based on macro indicators, it is not
intended to measure performance and must be coupled with other management tools, like a
performance measurement framework, to guide actions on what and where changes need to be made
in a particular agency. Determinations as to whether better performance outcomes are achieved as a
result of policy reforms need to be based on, among other things, collection and analysis of actual
performance data. Therefore, the Agency Procurement Performance Indicators (APPI), more recently
referred to as the Compliance/Performance Indicators (CPI) by the OECD-DAC, complements the
BIS, providing an effective tool for monitoring and evaluating implementation at the agency or micro
level. This tool would have to be linked to the elements of the national procurement system in order
to demonstrate how such a system is actually cascaded down to the agency and local levels. To create
such a linkage between the national procurement system and the agency-level procurement system,
one should consider take into account:
1. Whether the subject agency has a strategy for achieving an effective procurement program,
and whether this strategy is in line with the national procurement reform policy;
2. Whether the organizational structure and employee capacity of the subject agency supports a
strategy that is in line with the national procurement reform policy;
3. Whether the internal procurement processes of the subject agency support a strategy that is in
line with the national procurement reform policy and is in accord with its organizational
setup; and
4. Whether the subject agency is able to undertake its procurement in a transparent and
accountable manner, supported by sufficient records and documentation.
Based on the above findings, policy makers may then make further changes or refinements to the
strategy for improving the public procurement regime, or use those findings to develop a new strategy
to address unresolved needs, gaps and emerging issues.
Fiscal Reform and Economic Governance Project
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