Laying ground for a green procurement
President Tokayev sets a favourable background for the Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) in Kazakhstan. In his State of the Nation Address on 1st September, President Tokayev stressed the importance to prioritize quality over price in the reform Public Procurement law.
Following his address, meetings with the Vice Minister of Finance and the Economy Ministry on 6 September in the capital were very productive and created healthy attitude towards further possible reform in the domain in considering “green” criteria for public procurement reform in Kazakhstan in the draft Law Concept that must be finalized by the Ministry by the end of 2023.
In this regard, UNEP under the PAGE umbrella will assist the Government of Kazakhstan in the Public Procurement reform. The assistance includes capacity building exercises, help with legal drafting, and overall awareness raising on the SPP international norms and practices.
The training envisages the presentation of earlier developed prioritization and market readiness reports and preliminary conclusions that will be drawn for the SPP sectoral legislation analysis since the Concept itself will make a reference to specific provisions in the existing sectoral legislation. Prominent international experts from the Western and Eastern Europe will be invited to share the expertise, best practices and lessons learnt. It is expected that the Ministry of Finance and the Parliament of Kazakhstan will co-organize the training.
As part of negotiation agenda, UNEP plans to hold back-to-back bilateral meeting with the Finance Ministry to keep the negotiation process alive and secure further developments under the SPP reform in line with the UN standards.
The first training is planned for 8 November 2022. Based on information received from the training, the Ministry of Finance will develop and finalize the Concept with consideration of SPP best practices and recommendations by the end of 2023.