On 23 – 25 October 2019, the SWITCH-Asia Regional Policy Advocacy Component (RPAC) organized the 2019 Southeast and Northeast Asia Policy Dialogue and Training on “Harmonizing SPP practices and Measuring SPP benefits,” which took place in Suzhou, China, back-to-back with a workshop on ecolabeling and green procurement organized by the China Environmental United Certification Center (CEC).
Aimed at promoting public procurement as an important market-based incentive for a shift to more resource efficient and sustainable production practices, this event brought together participants from the ministries of finance and ministries of environment of 10 northeast and southeast Asian countries in a very fruitful policy dialogue and training. During the 3-day event, participants engaged in discussions and shared lessons learned on the importance of measuring Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and/or Green Public Procurement (GPP) practices and benefits.
One of the issues discussed in the policy dialogue was the degree of importance of aligning some of the aspects of the procurement processes in the region, such as certain criteria or labels, and the main conclusion was that, despite it was very relevant, the priority should rather lay on ensuring that when it comes to GPP/SPP, “no one will be left behind” in the region. That is, the idea of harmonization should have a strong focus on helping countries which are least advanced in implementing SPP to reach the same level of development as countries which are more advanced.
As it comes to the training, all participants understood the importance of measuring institutionalization, level and benefits of GPP/ SPP, in order to push the process forward. To have the “buy in” from the people working with public procurement was the reason highlighted for most of the participants to justify the importance of measuring the benefits of GPP or SPP in their respective countries.
During the event, countries like the Philippines, China, Korea, Japan, and some European cases shared their knowledge with the rest of the countries by presenting their experiences, challenges and achievements in what regards to SPP and GPP. As a follow up, SWITCH-Asia RPAC will present a manual to systematize all the cases that were presented in the training.
In addition, SWITCH-Asia will continue to assess governments in the implementation of SPP. In that context, the event “Supporting decision making on SCP through training on Sustainable Procurement” will take place in December, in Bangkok, as a continuation of the series of SPP/GPP capacity building activities in the region, which will be the third training implemented by SWITCH-Asia RPAC on SPP in 2019.
For further information about the 2019 Southeast and Northeast Asia Policy Dialogue and Training on “Harmonizing SPP practices and Measuring SPP benefits”, please visit here.
Contact details:
Mr. Mushtaq Ahmed Memon
Regional Coordinator for Resource Efficiency
United Nations Environment Programme, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Project Manager
Regional Policy Advocacy Component
(SWITCH-Asia – the European Union funded programme)
Email: [email protected]
