Comments

A review of ‘Measures and standards of performance and accountability of partner country systems in public financial management, procurement, fiduciary standards and environmental assessments’, especially with regards procurement, suggest that progress has been at best patchy. While some emphasis has been placed on the development of procurement legislation and regulations, these documents by themselves does not deliver an efficient and effective public procurement system. Governments need to invest in the institutions, process and procedures of public procurement. While public procurement is a key element of government administrative programs, specifically the management of public finance, the magnitude and significance of public procurement is usually not fully understood by stakeholders. The role of public procurement in reducing costs and improving operating performance without adversely affecting the breadth or quality of government services is also not well understood. Even with the best of intentions on the part of the responsible agencies in partner governments and donors, the importance of good procurement is not well understood and high level support for effective reforms is weak. Good public procurement is underpinned by high-level support for the public procurement system, clear institutional structures, a robust legal regime, a capacitated cadre of procurement professionals and effective governance and oversight institutions and processes. In many countries, public procurement has not been viewed as having a strategic impact in the management of public resources. It is largely treated as a process-oriented, ‘back-office’ support function often implemented by non-professional staff of the buying agencies. Consequently, little effort is expended to ensure that the policies and rules and the institutional framework governing public procurement systems are maintained in a manner that ensures that public funds are used in the most efficient and economic way and that systems deliver the best value for money. But recently, this has been changing. • In the last few years, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action have provided renewed focus on strengthening procurement systems at the country level. • The OECD has developed an integrated set of tools and good practices to improve developing country public procurement systems and their contribution to development outcomes. • In the face of shrinking budgets and the need to fight corruption, many governments have realized that significant savings can be gained by a well-organized public procurement system. • Many developing countries have realized that a well-organized public procurement system contributes to good governance by increasing confidence that public funds are well spent. • Many developing countries have instituted reforms aimed at making their public procurement systems more transparent and efficient and increasing the accountability of public officials. Public procurement is the single largest area of public scrutiny into acts of alleged corruption as it represents a major cost to the system – not only in terms of lost money. While further work is required in this critical area, a start has been made. It will be very interesting to see what happens at Busan, including with regards to continuing reform of public procurement. Mr. E. John Blunt is an Institutional and Public Procurement Expert with extensive experience in leading public procurement reforms in a variety of international development environments. He is currently on assignment with the Southern African Development Community in Botswana.

I notice that the 2009 ODE claim (which you quote) that AusAID's gender policy isn't having an impact puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that violence against women continues to be endemic in Melanesia (see p.51). This suggests to me that we shouldn't rely on this as a serious evaluation of the gender policy. Are we really going to blame AusAID for continuing violence against women in Melanesia?

Given the number of new AusAID recruits without development experience (especially at the senior levels where recruits are more likely to come from other government departments than other development organisations) it is not surprising that issues requiring technical development expertise - such as gender mainstreaming - are dropping off AusAID's radar. Additionally the aid budget has dramatically increased in past years without staff numbers increasing on par - how are staff meant to find the time to focus on a mainstreaming without additional resources, space to reflect and learn or capacitated and committed leadership?

With regards to the corruption issue, there was a very interesting article in The Age on Monday 10th October 2011 referring to “corrupt millions stashed here” : claim (Dylan Welch, corrupt millions stashed here: claim, The Age, 10 October 2011 refers). The article suggests Australia may be sheltering hundreds of millions of black dollars funnelled out of South Pacific countries by corrupt politicians and public officials, with the money laundering being tolerated by an unconcerned federal government. Papua New Guinea in particular is believed to suffer from the avarice of some of its officials and politicians, with a senior police officer recently claiming the country loses as much as 50 per cent of its budget - about $A1.9 billion - through fraud and corruption every year. Evidence gathered by several international organisations had also made particular claims about politicians from PNG - which has undergone a massive minerals boom in recent years - buying property in Queensland. A cursory examination of Queensland property registers by The Age found at least a dozen properties valued at $150,000 to $3.1 million owned by serving members of the PNG cabinet and their families. The claims have been made at a Queensland conference by governance expert Professor Jason Sharman. He called on the Australian government to drop its ''nonchalant attitude'' towards the problem, which he said restricted regional aid, governance and security policies. I commend the article to you. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/corrupt-millions-stashed-here-claim-20111009-1lg5f.html#ixzz1aNJ6gNfX <em>E. John Blunt is a Procurement and Institutional Expert with extensive experience in leading public procurement reforms in a variety of international development environments. He is currently working with the Southern African Development Community Secretariat in Botswana.</em>

That Australian-funded programs have found a way to work within constraints to improve services to those in need, is to be commended. A key to the future success of the program will be the continuing strong high-level Australian political support, resourcing and flexibility to enable the program to be ambitious, innovative, flexible and catalytic. I do note that despite the progress and achievements, the Zimbabwe program continues to contain significant risk due to the ongoing fragility of the country’s recovery. At some stage, Australia and other development partners will need to focus on strengthening government institutions, including and especially those involved in public procurement to enable a transition from donor led programs/projects to government led programs and also a transition to budget support. The strength, efficiency and effectiveness of these institutions should be centre of any on-going country strategy. When and how this re-focus occurs, will need to be considered and discussed soon. <em>E. John Blunt is an Institutional and Public Procurement Expert with extensive experience in leading public procurement reforms in a variety of international development environments. He is currently on assignment with the Southern African Development Community Secretary in Botswana.</em>

Sean Greetings from the frontline of climate change: Funafuti, Tuvalu. thanks for your comment on a key issue. I note in the State of Pacific Youth 2010 the following: The adolescent birth rate is highest in the Marshall Islands (138 per 1,000) and Papua New Guinea (104 per 1,000), with rates higher than Bangladesh (133 per 1,000) and or close to Laos (110 per 1,000), the countries with highest adolescent birth rates in the Asian region. So adolescent pregnancy is both a result of the youth bulge and part contributor. A major cause is the lack of economic and social opportunties - shown by the fact that outer island adolescents in the Marshall Islands have double the national rate. So my view is that the reducing adolesent birthrate requires a more complex set of interventions than simply providing access to birth control. Best wishes, Richard

A good round-up of recent developments in the Pacific. The formation of sub-regional groups, the recent one being the proposal by the Polynesian countries, to my opinion, points to one thing - the distrust in current regional political mechanisms and organisations, especially the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to address key issues affecting the region collectively. This means the PIF Comminique merely blankets the real sentiments of each island country, and established sub-groups such as the Melanesian Spearhead Group, on issues pertinent to the region. I hope that the formation of such sub-regional blocks will not derail the significance of the Pacific Islands Forum, and create a region divided on key economic, political and development issues, but provide platforms to strengthen the voice of the island countries.

As an extension to the discussion, it should be noted that a New WTO Procurement Deal is close. Forty-two countries are now close to agreeing an upgrade of their Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), a reform that could unlock tens of billions of dollars of commercial opportunities, and many times more if China gets on board. The GPA, a voluntary agreement within the World Trade Organization (WTO) opens a wide spectrum of public contracts in member countries to bidders from other members, improving competition and efficiency as well as providing massive new markets in areas such as infrastructure and transport. By upgrading the existing 1996 agreement, its members hope to bring their rules into the internet age, deepen market access and offer special treatment for developing countries. If the GPA members reach agreement, it would rescue trade ministers from a potentially embarrassing WTO meeting in December, since the 153 members have failed to clinch a deal on the Doha round of talks aimed at further liberalizing trade. The GPA talks, which had also taken 10 years so far, stood a better chance of success than Doha because they involved "a coalition of the willing" rather than the full WTO membership. The GPA is to date, the only legally binding agreement in the WTO focusing on the subject of government procurement. The GPA is a "plurilateral" agreement, which means that it applies to a number of WTO Members, but not all Members. The GPA's membership is limited to the 40 WTO Members that specifically signed the GPA or that have subsequently acceded to the Agreement. Several countries, including China, Jordan, and Moldova, are currently negotiating accession to the GPA. The GPA establishes an agreed framework of rights and obligations among its Parties with respect to their national laws, regulations, procedures and practices in the area of government procurement. An important cornerstone principle in this regard is non-discrimination. In respect of procurement, Parties are required to accord to the products, services and suppliers of any other Parties treatment “no less favourable” than they give to their domestic products, services and suppliers. In order to ensure that the basic principle of non-discrimination is followed and that access to procurement is available to foreign products, services and suppliers, the Agreement places considerable emphasis on procedures for providing transparency of laws, regulations, procedures and practices regarding government procurement. There is also a general requirement to publish laws, regulations, judicial decisions, administrative rulings of general application and any procedures regarding government procurement. The Agreement contains a number of detailed procedural obligations which procuring entities have to fulfil to ensure the effective application of its basic principles. In many respects, these provisions codify recognised good practices in the area of government procurement aimed at ensuring efficiency and value for money. In the context of the GPA, they also serve the purpose of guaranteeing that access to procurement is open and that an equal opportunity is given to both domestic as well as foreign supplies and suppliers in competing for government contracts. The Agreement covers the use of tender notices; the use of various tendering procedures; when negotiations can be held; minimum deadlines that must be allowed for the preparation, submission and receipt of tenders; the provision of all necessary information related to the procurement in question; obligations on technical specifications; procedural rules for submission, receipt and opening of tenders; evaluation and award of tenders; that information must be provided, after the award of the contract; and the mandatory requirements for the establishment of a domestic bid challenge system. Whilst no developing countries are either members or observers, the Agreement recognizes the development, financial and trade needs of developing countries, in particular least-developed countries, and allows special and differential treatment in order to meet their specific development objectives. The Agreement and its provisions provide an excellent starting point for developing countries that are reforming government procurement. The Agreement is comprehensive and again, the provisions codify good practices in government procurement. E. John Blunt is a Procurement and Institutional Expert with extensive experience in leading public procurement reforms in a variety of international development environments. he is currently working with the Southern African Development Community Secretariat in Botswana.

A great, thoughtul read, and important questions to ask as more and more donors move towards open data initiatives and strengthened transparency regimes. Is disclosure for disclosure's sake enough, or should donors be thinking more carefully about the end users of their data?

Nope, She is a Criminal on the run. She run away from Indonesia because she is a suspect of high level financial crime in Indonesia

I hope she become president of Indonesia, not president of world bank, her country need person like her

We need madam Sri Mulyani to lead our nation, our country Indonesia. We are proud of her to be a global true leader but Indonesia need her. We wait for her in our Presidential Election in 2014.