Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Welcome, folks, to this latest webinar in our series here at George Washington University Law School. The session's on New Directions in International Development, Procurement in a, increasingly global procurement world.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: We have 3 sessions this week on July 20th, 22nd, and 24th. Each of the sessions will start at the same time, which is 9 o'clock Eastern Time, 1500 hours in Central European time, and 1830 in India.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: We are going to be going through, several different topics over the course of these days. We have… recordings will be available, for… from the session. They will be available at publicprocurementinternational.com.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: and at the GW Law, Government Procurement Law YouTube page as well. Those recordings should be available later this afternoon. They'll also be posted at the program page, and the program page is in the chat.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: As we go along, please feel free to pause the questions in the chat, and we'll be responding to those questions. The public back and forth in those chats will become part of the record of this, so we'll be linking in and embedding in the program page.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: at publicprocurementinternational.com. I should emphasize, we have a number of speakers here in various capacities, that their statements are in their personal capacities today, and we're very, very grateful that they could join us.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: I'm Chris Yukins. I'm the Lynn David Research Professor of Government Procurement Law at George Washington University Law School. I've been a professor since 2002, and I worked very closely with, Caroline Nicholas, and
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: on the development of the UN Model Procurement Law that we'll be spending a lot of time talking about today.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: We're very pleased that we can have… we have… now we have almost 450. This morning, we have almost 450 registrants from 85 countries, from around the world. We're very, very grateful that you could all join us. We, we really make a very strong effort to bring together the international procurement world. It's a globalizing world.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Friday, Caroline and I were presenting together in Kosovo, and we were really… we're very enthusiastic about a very, very high-level
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: of professionalism and understanding of procurement in Kosovo when we were there, and that's just… that's a scene that's replicated over and over and over again around the world, that this is the… the procurement world is advancing incredibly quickly, and we're very, very grateful that we can be part of that as we move forward.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: My co-moderator today is Benedetta Audia. She is the principal of International Development, a firm advising private sector companies in international development and business matters, and providing counsel to multilateral organizations, non-governmental organizations.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: and government entities on a wide array of issues, including United States… United Nations privileges and immunities, due diligence investigations, funds received and disbursement.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: project design and dispute settlement. Before establishing International Development LLC, she was a partner at DLA Piper, where she founded and chaired the firm's
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Global International Development Practice. Before she joined DLA Piper, she spent almost two decades working at the United Nations as a corporate legal advisor, where she conceptualized the legal architecture of thousands of multi-million dollar projects implemented in developing countries, where she traveled extensively to lead negotiations
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: with high-level government officials. So I'm gonna… Benedetta's gonna say a few words, and then I'll go ahead and I'll introduce the rest of the panel. Benedetta.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you. Thank you, Professor Yukins. So, I thought that perhaps it'd be good to put things in context and just talk a little bit about what international development actually is.
Benedetta Audia: And so, when we talk about international development, what we're really talking about is the transfer of resources, expertise, and institutional capacity to communities that lack them.
Benedetta Audia: And the goal is,
Benedetta Audia: to build something durable. Functioning health systems, roads that survive a rainy season, schools that stay open, institutions that outlast the project cycle. This is one of the very few fields where the stakes are not abstract.
Benedetta Audia: When international development, as a system works, children survive.
Benedetta Audia: People who need medicines get them. Bridges don't fall. But when it fails, the failure is not theoretical either. And this is why the mechanics of how development actually happens matter,
Benedetta Audia: matters as much as the policy behind it. And so.
Benedetta Audia: Procurement is important because it's not…
Benedetta Audia: just the back office, is where development policy actually gets tested against reality. And so every principle that we debate at the policy level, like transparency, value for money, local ownership, anti-corruption, gets decided in the procurement file, not the strategy document. And so, when we talk about new directions in procurement.
Benedetta Audia: We're really talking about 3 shifts happening at once.
Benedetta Audia: The very first one is structural. The donor landscape has changed dramatically in a very short period of time.
Benedetta Audia: With USAID's dissolution as an operational entity, a significant share of procurement volume and expertise that used to run through a single dominant bilateral channel has now scattered across several multilateral institutions.
Benedetta Audia: Private contractors, and really blended finance vehicles. The second shift is about who sits at the table.
Benedetta Audia: Procurement used to be a conversation between donor agencies and traditional implementation partners, but now it really includes private contractors and commercial actors
Benedetta Audia: who bring not only capital and delivery capacity, but also that fiduciary, you know, discipline that multilateral procurement rules are trying to enforce. The last shift, and then I'm going to give the floor to the next panelist, is really technological, and
Benedetta Audia: everyone here will spend some time there, right? Data analytics and AI are starting to do the AI-enabled tools are starting to do the fraud detection and vendor vetting work that used to depend entirely on human audit capacity.
Benedetta Audia: And that is genuinely promising for institutions that never had the staff to do it.
Benedetta Audia: well, but also, procurement rules were built around due process, contestability, and a vendor's right to know why they lost a bid. So there are a few things that need to be fully worked out, and it's important to understand also how these due process protections
Benedetta Audia: Survive contact with automated decision making.
Benedetta Audia: So, I'm raising these threads, just, again, to start the discussion, but, I'm gonna give you the floor back, Chris. Thank you.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thank you very much.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thanks for that context, Benedetta.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So, we have 3 sessions this week. Today is the introduction and an overview of key issues, such as Benedetta just went through. On Wednesday, we'll be talking about contracting and international development, and on Friday, we'll be talking about anti-corruption issues in international development. Just want to quickly go through our speakers. We have Prabhat Ghark, he's an international program management and public Procurement expert
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Expert with about 40 years of experience.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: With multilateral development banks.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: and bilateral development partner agencies working across the globe in various countries, including in the former Soviet Union region. He worked at the World Bank from 1984 to 2000, where he designed and managed international programs, policies, projects, and procurements.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: In 2006, he joined the U.S. federal government working on international public procurement.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: We worked in senior executive services, SES grade levels, leading an international public procurement practice group to develop policies and manage procurements funded by the U.S. government's foreign aid agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or the MCC.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Benjamin Herisset is a legal officer in the United Nations in the Office of Legal Affairs, International Trade Division, and the Unsertrall Secretariat, where he has served since 2017. He'll be working on an update of the Unsatural Model Law on Public Procurement.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Working Group 1. He's also in charge of managing cooperation with Francophone countries, especially in Africa, on various uncertain matters.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Before joining the United Nations, he worked as a lawyer in various international law firms in Ho Chi Minh City and Paris, and as a legal project officer on technical assistance and legal reforms in the French Embassy in Hanoi. He holds a master's in International European Comparative Law from the University of Paris de Pantheon Assass.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Jun Jin serves as the General Counsel and Director of the Office of Legal Services at the UN Development Program, or UNDP. He's a seasoned legal executive with over 25 years of experience, 25 years of experience in international development, humanitarian and administrative law.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: who previously led a global team of legal practitioners at USAID to provide strategic legal counsel to agency officials on high-profile programs.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: He's recognized as a leader and coalition builder in the development and humanitarian assistance legal community across multilateral and bilateral agencies, for-profits, and private companies
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: nonprofit organizations, foundations, philanthropies, and U.S. government interagency legal community. The U.S. government interagency legal community. We're very… Jun is also a graduate of our program. We're very, very proud and happy to have him here with us today.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Caroline Nicholas served as a Senior Legal Officer with the International Trade Law Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, the Unsatural Secretariat. She also served as Secretary to its working group on Procurement and Infrastructure Development, which drafted the Unsatural Model Law on Public Procurement, issued in 2011.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: and an accompanying guide to enactment, published in 2012, and other onset trial documents in the field. She advises on public procurement reform and its role in supporting international trade and development and the rule of law, and provides regular financial technical assistance
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: to national governments in all regions. She's a member of the editorial board of the Public Procurement Law Review, and a regular contributor to IT and other journals. And as I mentioned, Caroline and I were presenting in Kosovo on Friday. She and I have done many missions around the world, and she, for those of you working in this area, so that you know, she was very much the force
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: behind the Uncetral Model Law, the Guide to Enactment. She's made a tremendous contribution to this field of
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Of Procurement and international development.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Vinay Sharma is recognized as a distinguished authority in international public procurement, governance, and institutional reform with over 35 years of global experience spanning multilateral development banks, public infrastructure enterprises, and high-level advisory roles, linking fiduciary integrity with development of effectiveness, market creation, and institutional trust.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: He began his career in India's public sector infrastructure enterprises, working on large rail and urban transport projects. He subsequently transitioned to international development finance.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Serving in senior leadership roles at the African Development Bank and the World Bank. In those capacities, he led major policy reforms, contributed to the modernization of procurement frameworks, strengthened fiduciary oversight systems, and supported operations.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: across Africa, Asia, Europe, and fragile and transition economies.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: With Prabhat, he's a co-author of a book on procurement in international development, and that book is available… it's going to be published in the next few months, and it is linked on the resources section of the program page.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Which I put in the chat very early on.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Jean-Jacquardeau is currently the Procurement Practice Manager for the Latin American and Caribbean region of the World Bank. He's a U.S.-French educated lawyer who first joined the bank in 2002 as a Senior Procurement Specialist in the Africa region, and he's held since then various positions, including Senior Counsel in the Legal Procurement Group.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Procurement Coordinator for the Andean countries, and Lead Procurement Specialist for the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Before his current assignment, he worked at the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, where he was the Senior Procurement Advisor for the Energy Department. In his current position as manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, he leads a team of more than 35 World Bank Procurement specialists who supervise operations in 32 countries.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: He graduated, Jean-Jacques graduated from GW from our law school, with an LLM in federal government contracts in 2002. I should note that his piece, published in 2003, in the Public Contract Law Journal on the EU Directives.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: It was our first, really, breakthrough comparative piece. We've had many since then, and Jean-Jacques is very much a leader in helping build GW Law into an international program. We remain very grateful for that.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: He also has a degree from the University of Laurent.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: at the Faculty De Dois de Nancy, and is admitted to the parish for.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Last but not least is our newest colleague at GW Law School, Chopay Williams. She'll be joining us on Friday to discuss anti-corruption matters. She'll be joining us, as I said, in August 2026.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: She's a professor of public Procurement law, a procurement law consultant, and the deputy director of the African Procurement Law Institute unit at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: She's an expert in procurement law and policy in Africa.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Procurement of the multilateral development banks, gender-responsive Procurement, emergency contracting, sustainable public procurement, and anti-corruption law. And I'm very, very excited that both of you should be joining our faculty, and that she'll be able to join our session on Friday as well.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So with that, I'm going to go ahead, we can start the… walking through the substance of these three days. This is from the program page that is available, on the web at Public Procurement International. We talked about…
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: who's going to be presenting today, and then on Wednesday, we're going to have Jean-Jacques and Vinay Sharma. We're also going to be joined by a recent graduate of our program, Matteo Amodrigo De Laurentis, who's going to be talking about a note that he wrote, that was published in the Public Contract Law Journal on Procurement at the World Bank.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: And on Friday, Professor Williams is going to be joining Prabhat, and we're going to be discussing the developments in anti-corruption around the world as they impact on procurement and international development. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jun from the UN Development Program.
Jun Jin: Thanks a bunch, Chris. Thanks, Benedetta, for inviting me to join this exciting event today, and to share the virtual stage with Caroline and Benjamin.
Jun Jin: And seeing about almost 200 people
Jun Jin: on screen to talk about procurement on Monday must be an indication of something, perhaps maybe that the World Cup has concluded and there's nothing else for people to do, so… so glad for the timing on that to increase the participation for this event.
Jun Jin: So, when most people hear the word procurement, they think of back office administration, they think about buying mundane office supplies.
Jun Jin: But as Benedetta noted, trying to provide some context on international development, procurement and international development is really about the physical manifestation of international law, of development policy, and human rights, all translated into action.
Jun Jin: So, to understand the scale of procurement at the United Nations, the UN system overall procures about $25 billion U.S. annually.
Jun Jin: More than half of that goes to vital services with highest volumes focused on global health, on infrastructure, and transportation and logistics.
Jun Jin: at the UN Development Program, which is where I sit, we are the leading development organization within the UN, and one of the top three procuring
Jun Jin: Agencies in the system, managing around $3 billion annually to help countries to achieve sustainable development goals.
Jun Jin: But we don't just look for the lowest bidder. Through our sustainable procurement strategy, we demand fit-for-purpose solutions, and we use our purchasing power to help build local markets, to support women-owned enterprises.
Jun Jin: And to enforce strict anti-corruption standards globally.
Jun Jin: Let us take stock of our current situation within the development sector. As Benedetta highlighted just before, we are operating in a drastically changed environment.
Jun Jin: In 2025 and 2026, we witnessed a historic collapse in official development assistance. Total foreign aid fell by nearly 25% compared to 2024, driven by massive pullbacks from traditional leading donors.
Jun Jin: And for the UN, that's meant that contributions have plummeted by about 27% compared to 2024, the largest annual drop on record.
Jun Jin: So this has forced the UN, and certainly UNDP, into a bit of survival mode.
Jun Jin: The budget pressure and the calls for reform.
Jun Jin: Are driving a profound reimagining in how we operate.
Jun Jin: Including decentralization, including proposals to restructure and merge organizations within the UN, and to consolidate how we do what we do, including how we procure goods and services.
Jun Jin: So, because international aid is shrinking.
Jun Jin: This is something that we need to focus on even more.
Jun Jin: Than ever in helping developing nations to be better empowered and capacitated to manage their own domestic resources more efficiently and transparently.
Jun Jin: Good procurement prevents the leakage of already scarce domestic resources.
Jun Jin: So this is my call to action for all of you participating today.
Jun Jin: The developing world needs brilliant legal minds such as yours to help build robust institutional and legal frameworks
Jun Jin: in order to assess, design, and implement a procurement system that delivers value to its citizens. As development practitioners and organizations, we shouldn't just focus on dropping supplies into a country.
Jun Jin: We must support local capacity development and train professionals who can manage complex procurements long after aid money has dried up.
Jun Jin: So, Chris, if we can move to the next slide, please.
Jun Jin: Thank you.
Jun Jin: So…
Jun Jin: Now I'd like to speak just a few minutes about procurement reform at the UN, and what we've been up to over the last several years to evolve strategically to meet this moment.
Jun Jin: We've fundamentally reformed how we buy in several ways.
Jun Jin: One is on breaking down silos. So, historically, the UN was plagued by and
Jun Jin: justifiably criticized for fragmentation. You had numerous different agencies operating in the same country, often buying the exact same goods, but running separate, redundant bidding processes. So…
Jun Jin: A couple years ago, the UN addressed this by…
Jun Jin: launching this mutual recognition initiative whereby one entity is able to piggyback on the contracts of another agency to rely on the vendor assessments and the legal terms and conditions of another agency. And by doing that, we eliminate
Jun Jin: excuse me, eliminated millions in redundant overhead, and so now collaborative procurement across the UN system accounts for more than $2 billion of our overall UN spend.
Jun Jin: And related to that, we also consolidated our global demand. So, instead of piecemeal, stand-alone procurements, we've been
Jun Jin: Created and made much greater use of long-term agreements.
Jun Jin: framework contracts, if you will, for high-volume items, like pharmaceuticals, solar panels, and the like, which forced the market to give us unprecedented volume discounts.
Jun Jin: And we also realized that cheaper is not always better, right? Buying on the basis of low price isn't going to give you the long-term value that you might otherwise want, and so we modernized our legal and procurement frameworks to be able to calculate the total cost of ownership.
Jun Jin: And best value for money to ensure that our investments are durable, environmentally sustainable, and actually effective on the ground.
Jun Jin: Over the last decade, we've also built a strong system of ethical accountability. We instituted a strict UN supplier code of conduct, which now incorporates into our general conditions of contract various rules against forced labor, bribery, and sexual exploitation, to name a few.
Jun Jin: And we also created a system-wide vendor ineligibility list. So today, if a corrupt supplier is sanctioned by one UN agency, that debarment actually is visible on the UN global marketplace and is recognized across the entire UN system to permanently shut down forum shopping by bad actors.
Jun Jin: We've changed who does the buying on behalf of the UN and how they do it. So, procurement is no longer just a clerical job. We've transformed our workforce into highly skilled business professionals.
Jun Jin: Requiring strict, globally recognized certifications.
Jun Jin: And finally, we are… digitalizing and accelerating the pace of reforms through the Secretary General's UN 2.0 vision.
Jun Jin: We're rebuilding our digital public infrastructure, and an example of that is at UNDP, we built a cloud-based enterprise resource planning platform that shares
Jun Jin: digital, financial, and operational services to over 70 UN entities, and that also helps drive consistency across the entire UN system for… for benefit to our vendors alike.
Jun Jin: We're also creating the Amazonification, if you will, of the UN buying through B2B platforms like UN Web Buy Plus.
Jun Jin: And finally, of course, as Benedetta mentioned, we are experimenting with and integrating AI to help us to forecast demand.
Jun Jin: To detect collusion, and to audit complex supply chains.
Jun Jin: So, to conclude, over the last several years, we have
Jun Jin: sought to build a highly accountable, efficient, effective, and tech-driven procurement system that we hope will be able to help the UN to weather the current storm and continue to deliver impact at scale.
Jun Jin: Thank you very much, and looking forward to the continued dialogue.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thanks very much, Jun.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: We're gonna circle back with questions at the end, but I really much appreciate your contribution.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So now I'm going to turn it over to, Caroline Nicholas and Benjamin to talk about the next steps in the reform of the Unsettral Model Procurement Law. Caroline?
Caroline Nicholas: Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon to everybody. It's a pleasure to be here.
Caroline Nicholas: I'm just going to start by introducing Ansitrile and the model law before Bongeman talks about, the reform itself.
Caroline Nicholas: So, Chris, you were kind enough to mention the work that we did, nearly 20 years ago now on updating the answer trial model law. So, for those who don't know it, UNSERTRAL stands for the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. So, it's part of the United Nations, and unlike the system that June was talking about.
Caroline Nicholas: Amcitrol, which is its acronym and how it's generally referred to.
Caroline Nicholas: Has a model law that is a template for national procurement legislation, the primary law.
Caroline Nicholas: And the reason that Ansertrar got involved in doing this was twofold.
Caroline Nicholas: First, that it was viewed when Ansitrail started working on procurement, which was back in the late 1980s.
Caroline Nicholas: that procurement generally, public procurement generally, was not doing as well as it could be doing, so…
Caroline Nicholas: some reform and some standards to try and help drive up outcomes, particularly with concerns about anti-corruption, as well as getting what governments needed, would be really very useful. And secondly, that there was very, very low cross-border procurement.
Caroline Nicholas: and that there would be a potential to enhance the trade in public procurement. And both of those were viewed as critical to support one of the UN's main objectives, as you've heard earlier on from Benedetta and Jun, that is to support international development.
Caroline Nicholas: So that's why AnswerTrial got involved. It issued its first public procurement text, which was on goods and construction only, in 1993, followed it with a model law on public procurement more generally, including services, in 1994.
Caroline Nicholas: And then from 2004 to 2011, it reviewed that text completely and came up with a new model law on public procurement.
Caroline Nicholas: and a supporting guide to enactment. Now, the model law itself is a framework law, it's a template for the national procurement law, not a complete code.
Caroline Nicholas: So, it's quite short, and it contains all the essential rules and procedures that you need for a primary national procurement law, and it's intended to be complemented by more detailed rules and regulations.
Caroline Nicholas: And that, approach is supplemented, therefore, by the Guide to Enactment that Chris mentioned, which is a very much longer document, it's several hundred pages long.
Caroline Nicholas: that explains the policies behind the model law, how the model law implements them, and how to enact and use the model law itself. So you have the whole suite, available on the Answer Trial website, and we'll see a link to that in a little while.
Caroline Nicholas: Very importantly, though.
Caroline Nicholas: The answer trial model law will only be any use to anybody if it can be used at, by countries that have all sorts of international commitments, notably the UN Convention Against Corruption, which just about every country in the world has signed up to now, and in, nearly 50 countries, the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Government Procurement.
Caroline Nicholas: to which both the US federal system, and the EU, as a whole in each of its countries have signed up. So the idea is to make sure that the text is internationally compatible.
Caroline Nicholas: you can use it to fulfill your legal obligations with these other international texts, and that it's universal, and that's because it's designed to work anywhere. It's not designed as a US, European, African, or whatever text.
Caroline Nicholas: Very importantly, too, it also takes account of the key features of the procurement systems of the multilateral development banks, again, so that,
Caroline Nicholas: World Bank and other bank borrowers can use the answer trial model law law and find that they're not having too much difference between what they do nationally and what the World Bank requires.
Caroline Nicholas: It's therefore very widely used. It has the standard objectives that we all know, value for money, avoiding abuse, and promoting, but not mandating international trade.
Caroline Nicholas: The model was a technical text. It's not designed to implement any particular government policy. It's designed to make sure that governments can implement the policies that they choose, and particularly tools to enable international trade, and not to cause obstacles to those.
Caroline Nicholas: It's… you also find on the, Answer Trial website guidance on regulations intended to support the model law, and very importantly, a glossary
Caroline Nicholas: The idea behind the glossary is to deal with jargon. Across the different systems, we have various terminologies, and sometimes I've seen quite in-depth articles that have completely misread either Ansertrial, or the World Trade Bank, or another system.
Caroline Nicholas: texts, and are comparing not like with like. So I highly recommend the glossary. Although it's a little bit out of date now, you'll be able to translate from the US FAR, through the WTO, through the UN Convention Against Corruption, EU Directives, and answer trial, and so forth.
Caroline Nicholas: And that package as a whole has meant that the Answer Trial Model Law has become a very much a leading international framework for this national public procurement legislation. When I was with Answer Trial and now in the capable hands of Bonsai, there's also quite a significant amount of support
Caroline Nicholas: to users, from the Ansertrail Secretariat.
Caroline Nicholas: Thanks, Chris. Next slide, please.
Caroline Nicholas: So, the text, as we mentioned, was issued in 2011. It was drafted in the years before that, so it's obviously
Caroline Nicholas: a little bit out of date now. In 2024, Ansitral held a climate colloquium, looking at how Unsettral techs might deal with the climate crisis that's facing us all. And it was suggested that perhaps the answer trial model law could be updated with a focus on green procurement.
Caroline Nicholas: In 2025, however, Ancetral, in its plenary session, which is called the Commission, decided that it should have a broader modernization, and that
Caroline Nicholas: the answer to our model law in very much harmony with its previous policy or non-policy approach. It shouldn't be viewed as a text specifically to deal with green procurement or to deal with the climate emergency, so it was viewed as something that might perhaps be relevant, but the big focus would be a broader modernization.
Caroline Nicholas: Bonsai and his team have led consultations from the Answer Trials Secretariat with various experts to try and understand what the… might need to be updated in the model law.
Caroline Nicholas: very much on the basis that practice informs policy. So the consultations were looking at.
Caroline Nicholas: what's working, what's not working quite so well, what developments, have we seen, and how should the model law be updated. But the idea behind it was not to completely rewrite the model law, let's keep what's working well and update and modernize as necessary.
Caroline Nicholas: And very importantly, too, it may be that some of these issues do not need changes in the model law itself, but in the supporting documents. And in that, obviously, the core principles will be retained.
Caroline Nicholas: Chris, next slide, please.
Caroline Nicholas: So, the, as I've said, there were some secretariat consultations, and the Commission, answer trial, has decided
Caroline Nicholas: to look at having a… what's called a working group session in February 2027, next February, to look at updating the model law. Now, Bonsai's going to talk about some of the issues that they considered, but in practical terms.
Caroline Nicholas: The importance of it going to a working group is that answer trial has a very
Caroline Nicholas: transparent, inclusive, and consensus-based approach to developing its texts in a working group. They're led by member states. There isn't really any practical difference between UN member states and answer trial member states here. So view it as a UN member state approach to modernizing the answer trial model law.
Caroline Nicholas: It will work on the basis of consensus. Consensus is a very flexible approach. That means nobody formally objects to any provision, and so the member states will look to find solutions to modernizing the model door that everybody can live with, even if it's not their preferred approach.
Caroline Nicholas: So the working group will meet for a week in New York in February, just one week.
Caroline Nicholas: Then there will then be some recommendations to the Commission to see what it wants to do in July 2027, and see if any further work needs doing. You will find all of the documents on the Answer Trial website.
Caroline Nicholas: It looks like the web link itself is not very visible. I'll put it in the chat in a minute. And if you look at the Commission web page, the current Commission web page, you will see a document which has got a very long title there, Document 1257.
Caroline Nicholas: And you will see what has been considered so far. So that's basically the background and the history, and then I'm going to hand over to Mojemin, who's going to talk a little bit more about what's going to happen next. And as I say, I'll put the web links in the chat. Thanks very much, Chris.
Benjamin Herisset: Thank you, Caroline, and thank you, Chris, for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor as well, because I see many respected experts, so it's very truly an honor to be able to benefit also from the network here, because indeed, what Caroline has said is that there is now this project going, that has started to.
Benjamin Herisset: to revise and update the model law on public procurement and the related texts. And maybe, coming to the chat, I see already a question on what is a model law. A model law is really a template that states may use in their domestic legislation as a template, but then they really need to pass their own legislation or regulation or whatever
Benjamin Herisset: It is according to the legal system.
Benjamin Herisset: to follow the procedure, the procedures or the rules that are in that model law, but of course, they have all the, sort of, leeway, that they, that they wish, but of course, the ID,
Benjamin Herisset: because of all the work that Ancual has put into that is really to try to follow the templates that Ancitrol has adopted.
Benjamin Herisset: You can see on the screen here the topics that were listed as possible topics for updates to the Modelo and the related text, and I think it's also quite interesting that, because listening to what Jun said before, I see many topics that are indeed
Benjamin Herisset: also part of the strategy of UNDP in terms of improving the procurement strategy. So, I think it makes lots of sense, and it really means also that the UN is here very consistent in its approach, both on the operational phase, probably, and then on the legal-making process here in Central.
Benjamin Herisset: So, I will not go into the detail of each topic, but as regards procurement and e-procurement and digital transformation, the model already contains many elements regarding the use of IT, as we said before, in procurement, but now it's really about the digital transformation.
Benjamin Herisset: of public procurement, with the use of platforms by procuring entities, the use of data, and the reuse of data to improve
Benjamin Herisset: Procurement as well, and to generate more efficiencies. There are also some countries where actually e-procurement is now mandatory. I've recently, I've recently seen that in Bangladesh, and I think also the draft Chinese law, amended law on procurement also mandates the use of a digital platform.
Benjamin Herisset: in procurement.
Benjamin Herisset: The second important point, especially also in the national development, is, of course, the exclusion and development mechanism, the anti-corruption aspects, and here, what we witnessed is really this increased use of central registries, also interconnectivity between, registries, such as tax beneficiary holder, ownership, beneficial ownership,
Benjamin Herisset: and the Procurement registries.
Benjamin Herisset: And also a much more proactive approach by both the public sector and the private sector into identifying and excluding possible feeders and vendors. So I think there's also a lot of merits to probably update here the model law. We mentioned framework agreements. This was already in the model law, but apparently.
Benjamin Herisset: the practice revealed that there's lots of, sort of, privatization or marketization of framework agreements, and therefore, the benefits that are expected, from framework agreements, do not always materialize, because this sort of multiplication of platform and vendors platform and framework agreements
Benjamin Herisset: That are run by private sector.
Benjamin Herisset: Sort of make, actually, the life of many vendors and procuring entities more complex.
Benjamin Herisset: And linked to that, the suppliers list, or the certification schemes, which were not included in the Model O, but which were discussed in the guide to enactment, have now gained lots of traction, and also because of the digital tools that are now available that really allow to have this kind of pre-screen list of vendors in a very flexible and transparent manner.
Benjamin Herisset: We heard also about the use of non-price criteria for strategic procurement purposes. This is something that is also linked to the EU reform that is being started.
Benjamin Herisset: broadening the model low coverage to both the preparation of the procurement, but also to the procurement contract management and administration. And here, there's lots of lessons to be learned also from public-private partnerships, where unsettual instrument on public-private partnerships cover, those aspects, and how you can improve
Benjamin Herisset: Both a, a, probably value for money, but also transparency in those, in those, stages as well.
Benjamin Herisset: And I think also I wanted to mention another topic that was a possible topic for update is the community participation, where I understand the international community is also very
Benjamin Herisset: keen, and by community management, it's both the oversight aspects, but also the community being used as a bidder or as a method of.
Benjamin Herisset: to actually build an infrastructure. So there are a little bit the topics, and now we can move to the next slide.
Benjamin Herisset: Please, Chris, thank you very much. During the commission session that finished two weeks ago, this paper was discussed, and there were much, much support to have a working group to discuss all those topics and how they can be now addressed in the Modelo and in the related text.
Benjamin Herisset: The digital aspect, the fact that procurement still is the best way to deliver a good and well-needed infrastructure, it was also emphasized. And also that procurement remains, also in many countries, the best market opportunity for many MSMEs.
Benjamin Herisset: But I think there was also a cautious approach in terms of maybe having arbitration in procurement, so, whereas how you can maybe challenge a bid through arbitration remains something that is
Benjamin Herisset: probably very hypothetical, but of course, if we are talking about that contract management arbitration would probably come into the picture, and mediation was quite well received, I must say. And expanding still the procurement cycle to contract management and preparation and pre-award as well, was sort of, flagged as
Benjamin Herisset: Maybe more like a policy issue, or maybe too big, to, to take on.
Benjamin Herisset: There was also the need to sort of coordinate with the EU reform, and probably, Chris, you mentioned that before, after. And like Caroline said, we now have this working group session in February, which will report to the Commission session.
Benjamin Herisset: And so, what's next? Next slide, please, Chris. Really, here is a call for experts and everyone that is interested that, the Secretariat is now, going through consultations with experts and with organizations.
Benjamin Herisset: And so, we are reaching out to many experts, but of course, if you are interested, you just feel free to contact us. And based on those consultations, we will prepare a paper with possible updates, and those papers will be discussed in February 2027 in New York.
Benjamin Herisset: If, in the audience today, we have NGOs which are interested to join the sexual process as observers to that working group, they should mark their interest, already, now, or in the coming months. There is information on our website on how NGOs can become observers to
Benjamin Herisset: To unstitutional working groups, it needs to be international, it needs to be relevant to the topic that is being discussed, but we really welcome a participation of a broad
Benjamin Herisset: a scope of NGOs and observers to those discussions. So that's a little bit what I wanted to say today, and again, thank you for your interest, for your attention, and I'm happy to take on questions as well. Thank you very much, Chris.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thank you very much, Benjamin. I'm just gonna, this is… and I apologize, this is… I want to go back, if I can, just to… to Caroline's, last slide here. Caroline, if you want to talk about, this a little bit, how folks can get involved, just building what Benjamin said before?
Caroline Nicholas: Thank you, Chris, yeah. Just to say, as Benjamin said, it's possible for international organizations, either international organizations, governmental organizations, or international NGOs.
Caroline Nicholas: To take part in working group sessions, as Bonsai said, there's information about how to do that on the website.
Caroline Nicholas: And that involves essentially sending a request to the ANSER Trial Secretariat, and the idea here is to ensure that there's very good practical expertise from all over the world
Caroline Nicholas: presented to the member states to consider and take into account, as they, as they decide, how to update the model law.
Caroline Nicholas: very much the policy to practice… sorry, practice-to-policy approach that I mentioned earlier on.
Caroline Nicholas: So individuals can't take part, as Benjamin said, there will be, expert consultations, but individuals, too, can encourage their governments, or indeed procurement-related NGOs, perhaps, in their country that are, operate internationally.
Caroline Nicholas: To consult stakeholders and, and…
Caroline Nicholas: provide the consultations, feed them into the process. Again, the idea is really to understand what's going on in the world, and how the model law should or perhaps should not reflect those practices. And I've just put the answer trials secretariat
Caroline Nicholas: email on, on the bottom there. But please, before anybody inundates Answer Trial and Beaujourne with, with their points, take a look at the website, and you will see how the system works in quite a lot of detail. So with that, I'll stop there. Thanks very much, Chris.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thank you, Caroline.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So, I wanted to, wrap up… before we go into the group discussion, I just want to wrap up talking about, the… some of the major procurement reform efforts that are going on. What… so, as Caroline and I were working on the most recent iteration of the onset trial model law that was published in 2011, and we… we worked together with… with a very large group of
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Procurement experts from around the world on the accompanying guide to enactment. It's about a 300-page guide to enactment.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: And what became very clear in that discussion is that no procurement effort is an island working on its own, that all of these procurement efforts, are interacting, and they speak to each other, so it's important to keep track. There's actually, in addition to this, we were talking about this with Shoppe, who's… and I apologize that she's actually in the process of moving to Washington this week.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: That there is a fifth effort, which is the South African reform.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: South Africa has a very ambitious procurement reform statute in place, and it's developing, implementing regulations, and it's bringing together, with… Schobe's been involved, and Geo Kino, who… her colleague at Stellenbosch University, have been involved in bringing together lessons for the South African reform.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Among these four here on the screen, I just want to touch on these. We've been talking a lot about the UNSA trial effort. We've also, in the chat, we've had a discussion of the model Procurement reform effort. So, the model Procurement model Procurement code is used by 17 states of the 50, and by hundreds of
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: local governments and tribal governments across the United States.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: And it wasn't last… it was last updated in 2000, and now it's being updated, again for the first time in… in… in over 25 years. And it's… that effort is… is under the American Bar Association. It's being coordinated by a, by a non-profit called.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Partners for Public Good, which… and they're doing an extraordinarily good job in coordinating that effort with
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: with scores of lawyers and procurement professionals across the United States, including many from the National Association of State Procurement Officials, or NASFO.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: What's coming out of that is that there, for instance, there are elements of anti-corruption, there are strategies for anti-corruption that really don't… that really work at the state and local level that are unknown in the U.S. federal government. For example, constraints on
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: improper communications during the competitor process. So.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: that… the model Procurement Code reform effort is generating lessons that could be used in other nations. What Caroline and I, as mentioned, were lecturing in Kosovo on Friday. A lot of the issues that they face in Kosovo are many of the same issues that state and local governments face here, so there's a very useful interchange.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: The Trump administration is revising the Federal Acquisition Regulation. It's about a 2,000-page regulation that has 250 years of history behind it. It really can be traced all the way back to our Revolutionary War in the 18th century.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: That has been controversial in part because there wasn't a regularized notice and comment process
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: early on. It is now going through notice and comment, and there's a great deal of work being done on those revisions. I think what would be most immediately relevant to global reform efforts is the training that's coming out of that. There's training being developed on a very rapid basis using artificial intelligence.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: And it really is a precursor. Benedetta talked about the impact of AI on our work.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: That training, because it can be done so rapidly and so malleable using AI, it's really a precursor to using AI as a way of assisting procurement officials, not just in generalized training, but in particular problems that they may be encountering on a day-to-day basis. So, the use of AI for training, for implementation in the U.S.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: It's what's called Revolutionary fowler overhaul. That's a very… that carries very important lessons from the international community.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: The last is the European Union's proposed reforms, and that's the Public Procurement Act. There's a link on the program page
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: to what appears to be a leaked version of the European regulation, the European Union regulation. That Public Procurement Act, in whatever form it's going to take, is going to be published in… is due to be published in September, and we'll be having a webinar on October 6th. The shift from the current EU
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: directives to an EU regulation is really going to be profound, because it'll mean that we'll have one consistent law, regulations binding across all the member states.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: and will have real impact on the European Free Trade Area, the EFTA states, and on the potentially ascendant states with association agreements in Eastern… primarily in Eastern Europe.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So this change that creates a uniform procurement law across Europe, across the… really, more broadly across Europe, not just inside the European Union.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: could have a very important impact, and as Benjamin mentioned, the Unsatural effort will be monitoring those developments, and again, by September, we should have a clear vision of where that's going, and we'll be having a webinar with that on Gabriela Araca, my colleague at the University of Tauren, and I will be hosting that in October.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: So, we got a question in the chat about national preferences, and I, and I just want to open up the Q&A by talking about this issue, because probably the most important
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: aspect, or certainly the part that's received the most press, is that the European… the draft European regulation that was… that was apparently leaked, it would have a very strong European preference in it, a presumptive preference.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: for European products, and also for products from nations that have, trade agreements with the European Union, such as the United States, and other nations.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Such as Canada.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: through the government Procurement Agreement, or through bilateral agreements with the European Union. And the question that we had in the chat is.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: whether or not we're seeing that type of domestic preferences in other areas as well. And Benedetta, I wonder if you want to speak to that, how you see domestic preferences emerging in this mix of international procurement.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you. I was about… can you hear me?
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Yes.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you, I was actually about to interject and comment on this point.
Benedetta Audia: I think there has to be… if I just focus on the UN system, the issue of buying local is a relevant one in many projects that are implemented by various UN organizations, but the way it is handled
Benedetta Audia: It is usually done on a case-by-case basis, in the sense that very often, It is included in the
Benedetta Audia: Project agreement, in the project document, in the agreement with the donor, that any goods that will be used in support of the project
Benedetta Audia: will be purchased locally, and there are some requirements that are included, but again, it's a decision that is normally taken at the… at the project level. You wouldn't see, like, just a blanket
Benedetta Audia: preference to have, products purchased locally, you know, within UN-implemented projects.
Benedetta Audia: on the… on the flip side, in the system, in the UN system, if…
Benedetta Audia: a donor requests that products only be purchased from companies of the donor country, that request will normally not be accommodated. And so, again, it's important that
Benedetta Audia: Goods be purchased locally when there is a requirement, in the project agreement. But again, with some restrictions, and always, you know, the exception that if
Benedetta Audia: No effective competition can be reached at the local level that the international suppliers be, allowed, and invited to… to bid.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Caroline, I wonder if you could speak to this. So, the history for the group on the Install Model Law, we had the… when we were working on the Install Model Law between 2003 and 2011, there was a lot of resistance from our European colleagues to
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: having preferences built into the Unsettral Model Law. And the… but many of the developing nations, they just literally turned around in the room, they said, you, the United States in the back.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: What kind of domestic preferences do you have built in? What kind of socioeconomic preferences do you have built into your law? And so, I took a little time, and I stood up, and I spoke for, like, 8 minutes, just listing all the domestic preferences that we have in U.S. law, which made it clear that at least one of the partners to the uncertain effort had significant preferences
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Caroline, we ended up in a position, really a process solution. The process or solution that's in the current uncertain model law also says you can use domestic preferences.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: But if you have preferences, or other… domestic preferences, or other socioeconomic preferences, they just have to be clearly set forth in statute or regulation. It's a process requirement as opposed to a substantive requirement. Do you see space, Caroline, for expanding a domestic preference provision in the Unser Trial Model Law?
Caroline Nicholas: Thanks, Chris. It's a very good question, and I, as I've mentioned in the chat, the AnswerTrial approach is very flexible, because AnswerTrial recognises that this is a policy question for national governments. So the caveats to using the, model law and having preferences in the model law,
Caroline Nicholas: Are that they've got to be fully transparently disclosed, like any other award criteria.
Caroline Nicholas: They've got to be legally authorized, as you've just said, so not some whim of a procurement official, and they've got to be compatible with your international obligations.
Caroline Nicholas: So, for those who've signed up to the WTO's Agreement on Government Procurement, who are part of a regional free trade agreement that covers public procurement, or perhaps in World Bank borrowing and so forth, they're generally not permitted.
Caroline Nicholas: subject to thresholds and so forth. And I think there's a bit of policy tension here, Chris, between states that everybody knows wants to use these things to some degree, and an international community that was historically very anti-preferences.
Caroline Nicholas: And that's not just politics. A lot of that is because the evidence is that preferences, once they can be introduced to promote and protect developing national industries, but
Caroline Nicholas: They do tend to persist well below beyond when they might be useful.
Caroline Nicholas: They're often traditionally not been transparently disclosed, and they've had very poor impacts on competition in some areas.
Caroline Nicholas: So whether or not they're a good idea is actually quite a nuanced question, but, let's be honest, all politicians like to say they will support domestic, local industry, small industry, so everybody's going to be using them. I think the best thing to do is, if people wish to use them.
Caroline Nicholas: very important to use, to gather data on how they impact your procurement, and then you can look at a cost-benefit analysis. But again, I haven't found many politicians who are very willing to engage in that particular cost-benefit analysis. Thanks, Chris.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thanks very much, Caroline. We're running out of time, so I wanted to ask one question, because a lot of the challenge in working this area as lawyers and working with policymakers is trying to anticipate the practical changes that are taking place so that the law can align with what's happening, practically speaking. So I have a question for Jun, because he really, in the midst of this.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: at the United Nations. Jun, you've heard that the UNTERRA model law is going to be looking at digital transformation. For the European Commission, if you look at the draft
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: regulation, the memorandum that accompanies that draft regulation that was apparently leaked, that digital transformation is very important. So the question for the procurement community, June, is as we're thinking about digital transformation, and importantly, for the kinds of digital exchanges that you were talking about in the UN context.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: What will be the first, likely the first focus on… of those digital exchanges? Will there likely be a focus on contractor qualification information? Who's the corrupt contractor? Who's the inept contract? Or will there be other kinds of information being exchanged
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: across borders and between institutions. What do you think the first focus will be?
Jun Jin: Yeah, thanks for that question, whomever, and for raising it, Chris. Yeah, I mean, I think as it relates to…
Jun Jin: some… Possible areas for…
Jun Jin: moving the needle. As I mentioned before, the UN did already put in place a system-wide
Jun Jin: ineligibility system, right? Which, wasn't in place, despite what you might assume, that that was not something that was
Jun Jin: part of the system, when the UN was created many years ago, it was more recent when this was identified as a problem, and so the UN, the global marketplace, was really the platform which allowed UN agencies to
Jun Jin: to identify vendors who were subject to sanction, and to then render them ineligible system-wide. So that was a relatively recent
Jun Jin: construct. I think the idea of possibly expand… and that does apply also… so we… we take debarments from MDBs as well into account, so if you're debarred by the World Bank, for example, that would also apply to your ability to do business with the UN. So.
Jun Jin: So that came into place. I think it's a little more challenging to do it across other organizations, if that's part of the question about, you know, whether if the EC were to
Jun Jin: debar a vendor, that's not something that the UN would…
Jun Jin: be able to easily take on, because of the different standards. The U.S. is… is also has its own debarment regime, which is…
Jun Jin: was designed in part for a different purpose, so to apply different legal standards for an eligibility across the board might present some challenges. So, but it is, it is an area where I think, I'm also thinking about
Jun Jin: The… the push to… eradicate,
Jun Jin: And, and, and take on the problem in the development sector and humanitarian assistance space about
Jun Jin: preventing sexual exploitation and abuse, and so there has been a push. We have a clear check process that, within the UN, if an individual or an organization is found to have engaged or been complicit in
Jun Jin: In SEA or SH type, activities, that may also render them ineligible, and
Jun Jin: this has been kind of a concerted effort, including with the NGO community, which creates its own challenges, because
Jun Jin: you know, what the NGOs might like to see, and what we are legally able to do as a UN agency that provides and has to provide due process to vendors, it can… it can create some challenges if you're talking about sharing that information in a way that could be of value to others.
Jun Jin: Thank you.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thank you very much, Jun. Benedetta, any last thoughts?
Benedetta Audia: Thank you, Chris. I just wanted to take the opportunity to…
Benedetta Audia: To thank, the panelists today, and also, those who have attended the,
Benedetta Audia: this presentation. We've talked about institutional fragmentation, the changing caste of actors within the international development community, and also the prominent technology question that is going to inform how procurement and international development
Benedetta Audia: It's going to be, to evolve.
Benedetta Audia: Over the coming months and years. Thank you again for, for your, for your questions. Feel free to, you know, follow up, with any one of us, in, in writing if you want to. Our LinkedIn profiles.
Benedetta Audia: are, open and accessible, and again, I hope you'll be able to also join the remaining sessions of this series.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you again.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Thank you, Benedetta. We look forward to seeing everybody on Wednesday. It'll be at the same time, 9 o'clock Eastern, 1500 CET, 1830 in India. And we really have participants, we've had participants from around the world, and we've had really interesting questions. We appreciate your participation, and all the interesting questions we've gotten in the chat. Thank you again to the panelists, and again, I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday.
Christopher Yukins / GW Law: Take care, bye-bye.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you all.
Benjamin Herisset: Thank you!
Jun Jin: Thank you, everyone. Cheers.
Benedetta Audia: Thank you, everyone.