The World Bank e-Procurement Tools

The World Bank e-Procurement Tools

The World Bank has taken the initiative to create two online tools aiming at assisting countries to better understand e-Procurement and modernize their overall e-GP framework, as well as to ensure compliance. In this context, the World Bank has implemented the e-Procurement online learning course and the e-Procurement Toolkit, both of which provide practical information for users to quickly and easily take advantage of e-procurement benefits through implementation of e-Procurement.

Rapid e-Procurement Toolkit
The Rapid e-Procurement Toolkit provides guidance to clients to better understand their needs and requirements. In the past, implementing e-Procurement solutions has been resource intensive, time consuming and costly. By streamlining the e-Procurement process with the introduction of a dedicated website, countries can benefit from a more economical and efficient approach to enhancing transparency and accountability in public spending. The toolkit also leverages the lessons learned from previous e-Procurement implementations in the region. Furthermore, it incorporates the best practices in the market place and answers typical e-Procurement questions.

The Rapid e-Procurement Toolkit website provides two core sections:

• Documents section, including four documents covering the following essential topics:
  1. E-Procurement Preparation: Understanding the concept of e-Government Procurement (e-GP) and evaluating why and how to pursue the establishment of an e-GP framework. This document includes what are the benefits that e-GP implementation projects can offer and what are the actions that need to be planned in order to layout the way forward.
  2. Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) Implementation Methodology: Understanding the concept of Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) and obtaining a high-level approach for its implementation in an e-Procurement system. This document presents an overview of the OCDS and how it can be incorporated in a new or existing e-Procurement system.
  3. Public Procurement Indicators:Understanding the concept of public procurement indicators for the assessment of the operation of e-GP against relevant policy goals. This document presents different categories of public procurement indicators. For each indicator, computational method and target are defined.
  4. Guidelines for Conducting Market Analysis for e-Procurement Systems: Defining core principles of a methodology for conducting a market analysis with a view to obtaining/implementing e-Procurement systems. This document presents why and how market analysis can be performed as a means to better understand the ICT market regarding the available vendors and existing e-Procurement software products.
• Template Requirements functionality, guiding users to quickly formalize their technical requirements for implementing or procuring an e-Procurement system, in terms of:
  1. E-Procurement modules (14 modules in total, such as “Catalogues Management”)
  2. E-Procurement sub-modules (65 sub-modules in total, such as “Catalogue submission”)
  3. E-Procurement requirements (approximately 400 requirements)

The Rapid E-Procurement Toolkit is accessible at:
www.eProcurementToolkit.org

Online Learning Course
E-Government procurement (e-GP) projects are often part of the wider e-Government efforts of countries to efficiently and effectively serve their citizens and businesses. E-GP promotes better governance in public procurement by increasing transparency and eliminating opportunities for fraud and corruption. The application of ICT to procurement processes has resulted in e-Procurement platforms that are ideally suited to address the e-GP objectives.

Pursuing an e-Procurement system implementation is an effective way to improve public procurement management, through the automation of all underlying processes. Many governments worldwide have adopted end-to-end e-Procurement systems which cover the full procurement cycle.

The e-Procurement Online Learning course is composed of five modules, aiming to assist its audience to better understand electronic procurement and provide guidance on decisions that need to be taken for establishing or improving e-GP national frameworks.

The course initially focuses on how organizations can establish a plan for an e-GP implementation, and what benefits can be expected by such an implementation project. Furthermore, it provides an overview of the basic and advanced features and modules of e-Procurement systems, along with concise information on how to implement each of the described e-Procurement modules.

Additionally, the course briefly describes e-Procurement indicators and presents how these can be used by governments in order to measure adoption, performance and overall governance. Lastly, it focuses on how to incorporate procurement and e-Procurement into Financial Management Information System (FMIS) implementations in the context of Public Financial Management (PFM) reform projects.

At the end of this course, a certification can be obtained by those participants who complete the course and successfully pass the respective examination.

The five modules are:

• E-Procurement Preparation
• E-Procurement Basics
• Advanced e-Procurement
• E-Procurement Indicators
• incorporating e-Procurement into Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms

A sixth module relates to the exam questions leading to the e-Procurement Champion certificate.
The E-Procurement Online Learning course is accessible at:
www.eProcurementLearning.org