The first online Open House event focused on “Inclusive public procurement and governance models”, one of the topics which emerged during the Orvieto opening event. The event was moderated by EQN, who gave a presentation of some challenges and solutions to make governance and procurement inclusive and diverse, followed by a discussion among cities and partners. This format was chosen to ensure an open horizontal space for discussion to give city officials a space to share experiences, ideas, challenges and solutions.
Main points of discussion:
- Ownership is key to determining just how flexible procurement processes can be, and whether or not diversity and inclusion are seen to be important:
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- Ownership of the land on which the project is sited
- Ownership of the organisation that is proposing the initiative: donor agencies and public authorities being particularly reliant on tried and tested contractors and methodologies.
- Public and private projects will present with different constraints, some of which will be politically motivated or outside the control of those that are designing and implementing the project. It is important to identify these constraints and understand what can be done to minimise their impact on diversity and inclusion.
- Both public and private projects may have established procurement processes in place which are hard to change – particularly where the rules of engagement are enshrined in law. It is important to understand the impact on diversity and inclusion, and explore how this might be mitigated – first steps to changing the rules!
- Leadership that champion diversity and inclusion on the project is critical, otherwise it will become a side issue, especially in ’top down’ projects.
- Diversity and inclusion need to be front and foremost at all stages of a project: inception, design, implementation and in use. It is especially critical that it is actively considered at the outset, when the project plan is being agreed and the measures for success are being put in place.
Main Lessons Learnt:
- The horizontal structure of the event ensured a good participation, but at the risk of making sharing of experiences more complicated, in particular for participants whose first language is not English.
- In some cases, discussion in smaller groups may be preferred.
- To ensure that participants are ready to contribute, guiding questions and/or talking points may be shared in advance to give enough time to prepare their contribution.
