Governments spend the equivalent of 15-20% of GDP to buy goods, services and infrastructure. Thus the public procurement process involves huge amounts of public funds. At the same time, it is estimated that between 10-30% of the investment in publicly funded construction projects may be lost through mismanagement and corruption.
Governments looking for ways to finance the Sustainable Development Goals, or simply looking for efficiency gains, will get a high return on investment if they tackle integrity risks in government contracts. Tackling these risks not only contributes to better quality of services for the people and stronger infrastructure, but also enables substantial government savings, resulting in increased domestic resources.
UNDP has published a new Guidebook on tackling integrity risks in government contracts: An opportunity to unlock resources for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific.
The Guidebook is a practical methodology designed to help governments in Asia-Pacific diagnose integrity risks in the public procurement system, well as find proper actions to mitigate them. The Guidebook is also a valuable instrument for countries to prepare for the Second Review Cycle of the UN Convention against Corruption (2017-2021).
The methodology presented in the guidebook was successfully piloted in 2014 upon the request from the Government of Thailand to help reform its public procurement system and step up its efforts against corruption.
The Guidebook builds on the lessons learned from various countries and provides a user-friendly reference to navigate through existing international standards, good practices, and tools prepared by international organisations. These include the UNDP, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the World Bank, and Transparency International (TI).
