a UNFPA executed projects include procurement assistance by the UNFPA headquarters Procurement Unit in respect of government projects amounting to 72.6 million.

Purchasing is now undertaken by purchasing assistants or officers integrated into the operational divisions procurement specialists in the Procurement Projects Division in Copenhagen or the Office s field personnel or UNDP Resident Representatives under delegated authority from the Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services.

(iii) Including the issue of Diversity of sources of procurement as an agenda item at the annual meetings of the Inter Agency Procurement Working Group

(iii) Including the issue of Diversity of sources of procurement as an agenda item at the annual meetings of the Inter Agency Procurement Working Group

(iii) Including the issue of diversity of sources of procurement as an agenda item at the annual meetings of the Inter Agency Procurement Working Group

UNOPS procurement office is in the same building with IAPSO in Copenhagen.

Cost effectiveness of procurement services in 2002 10

26. In 1996, the Office decentralized the purchasing function.

19. Procurement of goods and equipment is a core activity for the Office, forming the main component of many of the projects undertaken on behalf of clients for 1996 total international procurement of goods and equipment amounted to 140 million (representing 1,158 purchase orders), with additional local procurement of 26,000.

13. The Office should ensure that procurement plans are drawn up for each project, detailing items to be purchased and indicating a likely timetable for action (para. 29).

(b) The Office should ensure that procurement plans are drawn up for each project, detailing items to be purchased and indicating a likely timetable for action (para. 29)

22. The Board examined the procurement of goods and services during the 1992 1993 audit of the Office of Project Services (now United Nations Office for Project Services) and concluded that there were few staff in the central procurement section with any recognized qualifications in procurement.

In 2004, UNOPS reorganized its client service and procurement operations.

The aim of such a provision is to provide transparency in the proceedings.

The Procurement Service engaged in a management review of vendor registration in 2004 in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the Inter Agency Procurement Services Office of UNDP, and has joined the United Nations Global Marketplace, the Internet based single gateway for vendor registration.

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

14. The Office agrees that proper planning of procurement actions will facilitate effective timely action and reduce the overall costs of procurement.

31. For all purchases, the project manager is required to sign the requisition as authorization of the procurement process and to confirm that funds are available.

The Office agrees that procurement performance indicators would be a valuable instrument for the management of staff and the improvement of purchasing in the integrated operations teams.

The Board considers that the Office should monitor centrally the procurement performance of the integrated divisions and develop and monitor procurement performance indicators, such as speed of delivery and prices.

11. The Office should finalize the handbook on procurement procedures as a matter of priority (para. 25).

(c) How long it took the procurement service to make a purchase.

The United Nations Inter Agency Procurement Working Group and the International Training Centre have launched an Organization wide procurement certification project to ensure that all United Nations procurement practitioners are professionally certified in their respective disciplines.

Although procurement staff training has been one of the recurrent items in General Assembly resolutions on procurement reform in the United Nations, and notwithstanding some improvements by the United Nations Procurement Division, the procurement training function remains by and large a haphazard undertaking at cross organizational level.

(c) Where requisitions are prepared by procurement staff they should be approved by project managers prior to processing and this approval should be formally evidenced (para. 31)

22. At the United Nations Office for Project Services, procurement of goods and equipment is a core activity.

(a) The Office should finalize its handbook on procurement procedures as a matter of priority (para. 25)

(d) Should UNOPS and IAPSO be maintained as separate entities, UNDP should continue to cover the full costs of the inter agency services provided by IAPSO (para. 59)

30. If a purchase is likely to exceed 30,000 and competitive bidding is required, the project manager should forward the requisition, with a planning document in the case of field office procurement, to the office s purchasing staff some three to six months in advance of the required delivery.

Specifications for that project have been issued and procurement is in progress.

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

EU current directives in the field of public procurement were not written with ERA procurement technique in mind.

(a) Piecemeal purchases At ESCAP, 1,178 purchase orders were placed for nine categories of items in 1996 1997.

UNDP, WFP, UNOPS and UNIDO procure mostly for their field projects.

Another case involved a public procurement involving the construction of a block of flats.

25. The Board recommends that the Office finalize the handbook on procurement procedures as a matter of priority.

(d) Should UNOPS and IAPSO be maintained as separate entities, UNDP should continue to cover the full costs of the inter agency services provided by IAPSO (para. 59)

Established in 1978 by UNDP at a time when it was the main source of funds for technical cooperation projects implemented by the specialized agencies, IAPSO's original mandate was to harmonize the procurement practices of the organizations relating to field projects with special focus on the purchase of equipment, in particular vehicles, at lowest possible cost.

The Board recommended, and the Office agreed, that where requisitions are prepared by procurement staff they should be approved by project managers prior to processing and that this approval should be formally evidenced.

This delay had a consequent impact on procurement activity and other key projects.

It would seem that IAPSO is at present the only organization in the procurement system to have successfully automated its entire procurement process.

UNOPS has developed expertise in recruitment and placement of experts, procurement, tendering and contracting (UNOPS has opened a procurement office at Copenhagen, which probably can be described as the United Nations procurement centre) at very competitive rates, while maintaining high standards of performance.

Support cost reimbursed from procurement assistance in respect of government projects (schedule 3) Subtotal

The Purchase Division should also be notified so that it can maintain accurate records of purchases made for each field mission and follow up on the delivery of the items.

For example, UNPD reported that certain items (contraceptives and pharmaceuticals) were purchased through UNFPA and UNICEF respectively.