15th Procurement, Integrity, Management and Openness (PRIMO) Forum

The 15th Procurement, Integrity, Management and Openness (PRIMO) Forum was held in Tashkent with more than 100 participants from 25 countries. Since 2005, the PRIMO Forum has served as a global platform for the exchange of knowledge and experiences in public procurement reform.

This year, the Forum was hosted by the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan from April 10-13, 2019, and is co-sponsored by the World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), in cooperation with European Investment Bank (EIB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO), and UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNICTRAL).

This 15th PRIMO Forum provided an opportunity for public procurement agencies, stakeholders from participating countries, and development partners to share their experiences and best-practices in public procurement reforms, with a special focus on managing procurement and implementation in public investment projects.

"The PRIMO Forum is a successful platform for sharing global procurement knowledge and building a skilled and innovative procurement community across the Europe and Central Asia region. Much of this success is due to the continued passion and support of public procurement authorities in ECA countries", says Cyril Muller, World Bank Vice-President for Europe and Central Asia. "The World Bank looks forward to continuing to support governments in the region in their efforts to create smart and effective public procurement systems".

The four-day event also aimed to promote and foster regional and global cooperation and networking in public procurement, as well as in contract management, to improve the quality of public investment project outcomes, ultimately to ensure better service delivery to citizens.

'It is very symbolic that Uzbekistan, which also hosted the very first PRIMO Forum in 2005, is again hosting this event 15 years later, when the country is undergoing transformative social and economic changes, including reforms designed to make the public procurement system more transparent, fair and efficient”, says Odilbek Isakov, Deputy Finance Minister of Uzbekistan. “With the support of our partners from the World Bank, ADB, EBRD, and other international institutions, the Government will continue to develop the legislative and institutional framework required to build a public procurement system that complies with international standards".

The 15th PRIMO Forum was attended by over 100 participants, including high level government officials responsible for public procurement from over 20 countries in the ECA region, as well as representatives from Kuwait, Brazil, Chile, and experts of international organizations, such as the World Bank, EBRD, IsDB, ADB, EIB, OECD, WTO, UNCITRAL, and others.