During the Annual Conference of the Inter-American Network on Government Procurement (INGP), which was carried out on the last December 9, the Observer and Member Countries of the INGP adopted the Declaration: “Public Procurement as a strategic area for generating greater public value and better access to citizens’ rights“, in order to establish their commitment to strengthening public procurement systems to make them more transparent, efficient and sustainable. In this way, it also follows up on the implementation of the Lima Commitment “Democratic Governance against Corruption” and the mandates of the OAS General Assembly Resolutions to strengthen public procurement systems.

Public procurement and contracting are a strategic area in the prevention of corruption since it handles resources that represent around 20% of the countries’ GDP.

As part of the working session, the 2020-2021 management results obtained in the framework of the INGP were presented, highlighting the development and launch of relevant tools and technical instruments for institutional capacity building, such as:

– “Evaluation of the response of public procurement systems in Latin America to the challenges of COVID-19“.
– “Model Directive for the Implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement“.
– “Guide for the identification of corruption risks in public procurement, using data science” and “Algorithmic models: early warning systems for irregularities and red flags in public procurement”.

Also, the Government of Ecuador was elected as President of the INGP for the 2021-2023 period, represented by Mrs. María Sara Jijón, Director of the National Public Procurement Service (SERCOP) and the following countries as part of the Executive Committee:

– North America Region: United States of America.
– Central America Region: Panama.
– Caribbean Region: Jamaica.
– Andean Region: Peru.
– Southern Cone Region: Paraguay.

Panama was chosen to host the XVII Annual Conference of the INGP in 2022.

For more information on the work and results of the INGP, please see the following video: