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Ippc6 2014 presentation n costa unops
1. Examining the relationship between the
barriers and current practices of sustainable
procurement: a survey of UN organizations
Jacob Hasselbalch, Nives Costa & Alexander
Blecken
UNOPS
IPPC6 2014, Dublin
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UNOPS mission is to expand the capacity of the United Nations
system and its partners to implement peacebuilding, humanitarian
and development operations that matter for people in need.
UNOPS acts as a service provider to a variety of partners, from
bodies to private sector organizations.
UN
UNOPS is a central resource for the United
procurement and contracts management.
Nations system in
UNOPS delivers results in three core areas:
Sustainable
project management
Sustainable
infrastructure
Sustainable
procurement
UNOPS mission, mandate and role
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Why is UNOPS doing academic research?
• To better inform actions taken on implementing and
advising on sustainable procurement
• Building on previous research,
progress
Develop UNOPS as
monitoring changes and
•
knowledge leader
sustainable
procurement
on
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Some background on Sustainable Procurement in the UN
• A recent phenomenon: on World Environment Day
2007 Ban-Ki Moon pledged to a sustainable UN
• Since then different agencies explore solution to
leverage their procurement power
• SP is a sensitive political issue: G77 concerns of
trade barriers, and lack of formal endorsement by
General Assembly
• Previous research highlighted that the tense political
environment constrained choices of procurers
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Research question 1:
What are the most
important barriers to
SP implementation?
Our research design aims to investigate the barriers to sustainable
procurement in the UN
• Targeted population: entire UN procurement community
• Two sets of questions: SP implementation measures &
SP barriers
• Online questionnaire yielding 272 valid responses
Research question 2:
How do practitioners
and policy makers differ
in their understanding
of the state of SP?
Research question 3:
Is there a relationship
between barriers
reported and the SP
practices staff are
currently engaged in?
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DISCUSSION:
RQ1: SP implementation from words to action?
• Time to operationalise SP
• Background work on SP completed, now need to move to specific
goals and targets measured against benchmarks
• Unavailability of sustainable goods in local markets still
ranking high
Aligned with the findings of of Hasselbalch, Costa &
Blecken (2013)
• SP operationalization has to be an holistic affair
• The highest ranking barrier is training needs
Requisitioners seem to have the lowest appetite for SP
The barrier of lack of inter-agency collaboration
reinforces this finding
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DISCUSSION:
RQ2: agreement between practitioners and policy makers
• Only 1 item showing significant difference
• Measure of SP implementation: SP could hurt our
relationshsip with suppliers
Practitioners may have a more realistic view of how
suppliers would respond
•
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DISCUSSION:
RQ3: a model for successful SP implementation
• Exploratory factor analysis highlighted latent barriers
and provided a more accurate framework of analysis
• Few high level policy enablers, paired with clear demand and tools
availability
• Regression analysis suggested a model for the enabling
environment for SP
• Emphasis on the importance of having policy and guidance in
place at all levels
Impractical to boost expertise in a policy vacuum•
• On the Problems factor, linkage with the unresolved
political issues around SP
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Conclusions, and where do we go from here?
• Combining our conclusions:
• Underlying barriers (political ones) are at the origin of some
unresolved issues; apparent levers (training) are addresing
the manifestation of the barriers and not their root causes
• Different conclusion than previous studies:
• Rapidly evolving environment
Sample size and composition
• Further research
•
•
•
Reconcile with concrete cases and examples of SP
Include other members of the supply chain
Other routes?
•
