Annual procurement planning

The 1996 purchasing plan exercise resulted in the highest ever number of plans submitted to Headquarters by Field Offices.

The primary source of procurement statistics is the annual report on United Nations system procurement issued by the Inter Agency Procurement Services Office of UNDP.

UNDP Inter Agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) already has an advanced e procurement platform.

(b) The plan should indicate the method of procurement, in line with the Procurement Manual and existing guidelines.

The Procurement Division, however, agreed that global statistics would aid in procurement planning.

The Advisory Committee, however, underlines the importance of revisiting procurement plans on a quarterly basis to ensure that they are updated with regard to the operational requirements of a mission, and the need to enforce the use of procurement plans as tools to facilitate effective and efficient procurement management, as recommended by the Board of Auditors.6

16. Annual procurement plans should be obtained from all field offices and procurement planning should be strengthened further to ensure economy and efficiency in procurement planning.

Develops and implements work plans and provides overall management of the Division.

UNDP supports such a procurement policy and has incorporated it into the Procurement Manual.

This aspect should be included in procurement training programmes.

The 1997 exercise requires Field Offices to report all procurement anticipated in the course of 1997, including that of implementing partners.

The Procurement Services should investigate ways in which the procurement plan can be enhanced as a tool in the management of the entire procurement process.

The Procurement and Travel Section and other units should be encouraged to prepare procurement plans and the use of blanket contracts expanded.

At UNDP, procurement staff also receives training on legal aspects of procurement.

(f) Enforce the use of a procurement plan as a tool to facilitate effective and efficient procurement management (para. 115)

See IAPSO procurement statistics at www.iapso.org.

In paragraphs 259 and 260 of its report,2 the Board of Auditors refers to the need for peacekeeping missions to submit procurement plans in a timely manner, in order to expedite the compilation of an overall procurement plan.

France now plans to acquire a trajectory correction system on OGR munitions.

(Thousands of United States dollars)

Procurement plan to be drafted to cover estimated requirements over the next 12 month period

Equipment purchased during the year was lower than planned due to a scale down of original purchases planned.

Procurement planning

To ensure that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations submits the consolidated acquisition plan to the Procurement Service by 1 June of each financial year, the Department has an internal goal of submitting all acquisition plans to the Procurement Service by 15 May.

The Procurement and Contracts Unit has consolidated the submitted procurement plans and conducts periodic review meetings with the major clients.

22. Procurement planning should be improved to avoid piecemeal purchases.

The procurement plan should indicate whether the items are to be bought in country or internationally, the timing of the purchase, the delivery date required and estimated cost.

29. The Board found that, in practice, procurement plans were rarely prepared.

Current business seminars by UNPD and training initiatives by IAPSO are patently inadequate relative to the task at hand.

The Advisory Committee underlined the importance of revisiting procurement plans on a quarterly basis to ensure that they were updated with regard to the operational requirements of a mission, and the need to enforce the use of procurement plans as tools to facilitate effective and efficient procurement management, as recommended by the Board of Auditors.

Requests the Secretary General to ensure that all peacekeeping missions operate with reference to their procurement plans in order to realize the benefits offered by proper procurement planning

In paragraph 362 of the report, UNDP agreed with the Board's recommendation that it implement procedures to review environmental concerns during the procurement process, using the guidance provided in the UNDP Procurement Manual.

A review of individual procurement plans indicated that while some were completed to a large degree, others provided insufficient information.

Annual procurement plans for those items in approved projects were prepared.

UNDP IAPSO also has an advanced e procurement platform and is expecting a global e procurement solution in 2005 as part of the roll out of its ERP system.

Following a competitive bidding exercise in April 2001, IAPSO was selected to procure drugs and manage the related supply process for the Global Drug Facility (GDF) of the Stop TB Partnership (www.stoptb.org).

The Procurement Service informed the Board that it would develop guidelines for the registration of local vendors in consultation with the missions.

UNDP plans to issue its revised Procurement Manual in English, French and Spanish later in 2005.

Postponement of the planned purchase.

The high rate of response from the substantive branches in completing their procurement plans is commendable.

The required skills can be augmented through well designed training activities.

29. Requests the Secretary General to ensure that the United Nations Global Marketplace website, inter alia, features lists of companies that register through the Global Marketplace as vendors of United Nations system entities, as well as statistics on contract awards, acquisition plans and procurement notices

7. Requests the Secretary General to ensure that all departments and offices at Headquarters and in the field develop, in cooperation with the Procurement Division, annual procurement plans, which should be made publicly available

7. Requests the Secretary General to ensure that all departments and offices at Headquarters and in the field develop, in cooperation with the Procurement Division, annual procurement plans, which should be made publicly available

UNDP believes that the formal aspects of reporting on procurement activities and the professional exchange of procurement experiences and best practices are currently within the mandate of IAPWG (recommendation 7).