Compendium of Country Examples and Lessons Learned from ...

Implementing a Procurement AssessmentThe following section provides methodological background information and shares experiences onusing the indicator system.“Baseline indicators” presents the key elements of the Methodology and discusses some practicalissues such as arriving at the “right score” and the importance of documentary evidence.“Performance/compliance indicators” introduces the Methodology and summarises experiencesfocusing on sampling, data collection and interpreting the results.The assessment cycle is completed with sections entitled Validation and Assessment Report, duringwhich high-level government officials, development partners and stakeholders are included forvalidation and reporting purposes.Part I:Baseline indicatorsAs indicated earlier, the Methodology follows a two-step approach: Part I covers the Baselineindicators (BLIs) that deal with the formal and functional features of the existing system. Part IIcovers the compliance/performance indicators (CPIs) that deal with monitoring performance data todetermine the level of compliance with the formal system. The two parts are designed to be appliedjointly or separately depending on the intended purpose and scope of the assessment. Theunderstanding is that the assessment will provide a basis upon which a country can formulate acapacity development plan to improve its procurement system as well as to establish a baseline againstwhich future progress can be measured. It was agreed with the JV on Monitoring the Paris Declarationthat the procurement baseline indicators would be used to monitor the qualitative procurement targetof the Paris Declaration (Target 2b). 12The Methodology provides 4 pillars organised around 12 indicators and 54 sub-indicators with definedscoring criteria. The scoring system ranges from 3 to 0 for each baseline sub-indicator with theexception of 2 sub-indicators, which are pass/fail criteria (sub-indicator 4d and 10e).The Methodology includes a User‟s Guide, which is a “must read” when preparing for an assessment.Some key elements shall be highlighted as follows: 131213Indicator 2, Reliable country systems: number of partner countries that have procurement and publicfinancial management systems that either a) adhere to broadly accepted good practices or b) have areform programme in place to achieve these. Target for 2(b) Procurement: one-third of partnercountries move up at least one measure (i.e. from D to C, C to B or B to A on the four-point scaleused to assess performance for this indicator).Methodology for Assessment of National Procurement Systems,www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/procurement.COMPENDIUM OF COUNTRY EXAMPLES AND LESSONS LEARNED […] - OECD 2008 23