TOF Norway partnered in the project Fair Public Procurement submitted to the Nordic Council of Minister’s Grant Programme for Nordic-Baltic Non-Governmental Organisations’ (NGO) Cooperation 2021 Estonia. Improving public procurement, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Norway. The project received funding in August of 2021 and had its kick-off meeting in October 2021.
The project was managed by NGO Ausamad Riigihanked, Estonia. Completed Apr 2022.
Download report • FAIR PUBLIC PROCUREMENTS – project results
Press release 29.11.2021
The international project analyses the best practice for public procurement in the Nordic countries
Non-profit organizations in Estonia, Norway, Denmark, and Finland work together to promote rules for public procurement. The overall goal of the project is to make public procurement in the Nordic region higher quality, more transparent and to reduce the opportunities for corruption and arbitrariness in the client. The second goal is to share experiences with regard to environmental protection, gender equality and other Nordic social values in public procurement.
“There is a trend in public procurement that instead of just asking for the cheapest price, qualitative evaluation criteria should be added. These criteria should make the contracting party’s choice more environmentally friendly, innovative, and supportive of social values. Criteria are also subjective rather than crucial for evaluating a creative solution. This trend is welcome, but the more value points given to qualitative indicators and subjective criteria, the more important is the transparent evaluation process, explains Viive Aasma, director of NGO Ausamad Riigihanked.
The project group selected five topics that are problematic and important in all countries. In the coming months, the partners will collect data on both these topics and examples of qualitative criteria used in their country, which will then be analysed. As a result of the project, a summary of best practice on selected topics will be put together with recommendations to countries on the basis of the information collected. The recommendations include changes in the law to make public procurement more transparent and propose qualitative criteria to support Nordic values. The summary shall be sent to the legislative authorities and organizations. The project will end in March 2022.
The four-partner project is coordinated by NGO Ausamad Riigihanked from Estonia, who has knowledge of procurement issues; Open Knowledge Finland is an expert on open data and transparency in Finland, the Interfolk Institute for Civil Society in Denmark is an expert on civil society and TOF Norway in Norway has knowledge of environmental issues. The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers under the Nordic-Baltic non-profit support program.
Further information, please contact TOF Norway:
post@tofnorway.org