Table 5 Constraints on e procurement in the United Nations system

E. Procurement guidelines

The Inspector therefore recommends that these five basic principles, which are not exhaustive, should guide the United Nations procurement system in the development of e procurement solutions.

E. Procurement, asset and administrative management

In business, the term most commonly refers to a specific type of auction process (also called procurement auction, e auction, sourcing event, e sourcing or eRA, eRFP, e RFO, e procurement, B2B Auction) used in government or private sector procurement.

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

E. Legal value of procurement contracts concluded electronically

This is a problem with the current Reality Procurement System that will be corrected in a future procurement system.

External validation of the procurement system

D. Computerisation of the procurement system

As part of its next wave of enhancement of its ERP (Atlas system), UNDP is implementing an e procurement solution globally in 2005 within the overall objective of building procurement capacity at programme government levels.

Procurement practices within the United Nations system

Procurement practices within the United Nations system

E procurement is yet to be reflected in procurement policy and procedures manuals as an alternative method to manual transactions.

Thus the general assessment of the merits of e procurement left no doubt that it was considered as the indispensable way forward in modernizing the procurement function within the United Nations system and bringing it to world class standards.

Most of the organizations currently use e procurement for displaying or posting procurement information on their web sites, including procurement guidelines, and for communicating with suppliers and clients.

IAPSO, currently the most advanced entity in e procurement, reports that all its procurement functions are carried out using electronic methods and all purchase orders are issued in its UNWebBuy e commerce application.

UNICEF agrees with the issue of electronic procurement and notes that the best benchmark for measuring progress would be other public procurement organizations that have been successfully implementing e procurement.

With the exception of IAPSO, which has automated all its procurement stages and processes thanks to its UNWebBuy e commerce platform, all the organizations are still more or less at the e procurement start line.

JIU REP 2004 9, Procurement practices within the United Nations system.

Procurement practices within the United Nations system (JIU REP 2004 9)

Procurement practices within the United Nations system (JIU REP 2004 9)

Thus IAPSO's UNWebBuy demonstrates the possibilities and opportunities that e procurement represents for the organizations.

In China, ERAs are open only to members of the local online public procurement bidding system maintained by local public procurement centres.

Establishment of a unified system of reporting and accountability for procurement services

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

E. Enhancing the Performance Appraisal System

e. Investment decision support system ( 100,000)

Direct procurement of drugs by the recipient countries is also possible through IAPSO's e commerce platform.

The public system for procurement, distribution and management of pharmaceutical products is weak.

The Bank publishes periodic Country Procurement Assessment Reports available on its web site and, as earlier noted, promotes e commerce platforms in public procurement agencies in the recipient countries.

41. Requests the United Nations development system to strengthen its procurement systems, guided by best practices, and to progressively rely on national systems for procurement

(d) Take steps to ensure that all staff members involved in the procurement process are fully conversant with the application of the proposed procurement system.

In this context, increasing emphasis should be placed on training in electronic procurement (e procurement) methods and on technical assistance in support of capacity building for public procurement agencies in the developing countries and countries with economies in transition.

UNDP is firmly committed to e procurement solutions (recommendation 9) and capacity building in recipient countries (recommendation 10).

(e) Report of Working Group I (Procurement) on the work of its seventh session (A CN.9 575)

E procurement, discussed in chapter V, is seen by virtually all the organizations as offering potential benefits for the modernization of the procurement function and bringing it to world class standards.

E. Towards a system wide approach to funding

External audit welcomes this initiative to modernise the procurement system, which should carry significant benefits.

The procurement and inventory system will be purchased and implemented in the 2006 2007 biennium.

This procurement system will be purchased and implemented within the year 2006 2007 and will be integrated with the financial management system.

Requests the Secretary General to continue to improve reporting procurement data to Member States and to consider procurement system processes utilized in the government and private sectors

The Inspector was informed that e procurement systems could compress process time cycles from four weeks to four days.

The Inspector outlines below the basic principles which should guide the organizations in their march towards e procurement systems.

Each of the two subgroups of the system exhibits equally differing procurement scales among its components.