Harmonization Working Group

Chair: Katinka Rosenbom (Chief Contracting, UNICEF)

Reporting to: Procurement Network

 

This Working Group has to date undertaken three projects: Procurement Process and Practice Harmonization in Support of Field Operations, Phase I, Phase II & Phase III. 

The objectives of Phase I were to:

  • Create a common framework for harmonization of procurement related regulations, rules, policies, procedures and business practices;
  • Document and include country level outcomes and best practices in collaboration with the UNDG Task Team on Common Services and procurement in (selected) countries; and
  • Develop a standardized toolkit for country level procurement practitioners taking into account the best practices, needs and insights from the country level.

The objectives of Phase II were to:

  • Facilitate the implementation and use of the modalities of the document ‘Common UN Procurement at the Country Level’, developed under Phase I, through field support missions to a total of five countries and two train-the-trainer workshops.
  • Use the experience gained and the feedback collected through the roll-out and implementation of the modalities of common UN Procurement to:
  • Continue to improve and align the modalities to reflect progress achieved in HQ harmonization of business practices;
  • Develop additional tools in response to needs identified at the country-level for further harmonization of business practices; and
  • Simplify the application of these tools at the country level
  • Assess the feasibility and benefits of harmonizing standard solicitation documents, model contract templates and general terms and conditions of UN organizations 
  • Follow-up on implementation of decisions made by the HLCM PN during Phase I of the project 
  • Identify the commodities and services suitable for common UN procurement at country and / or headquarter level, determine the potential benefits that could be achieved, and establish a proposed work plan to ensure common procurement is undertaken for those commodities and services deemed most beneficial to the UN

The main objective of Phase III was to: 

  • Develop and implement common procurement prototype templates further to the assessment study conducted under Phase II
  • Procurement Network (PN)