UN System Procurement Statistics Report - 2003

BACKGROUND

The first annual statistical report on procurement by UN agencies in respect of operational activities, prepared by the Inter-Agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) of the United Nations Development Programme, was submitted to the 39th session of the General Assembly (Doc. A/39/417) in 1984. By resolution 39/220 the General Assembly established the need for recurrent reporting of such information on operational activities and encouraged organizations of the UN system to co-operate with IAPSO in this important exercise.

To obtain more complete reporting on operational activities, data on other components of technical cooperation, such as project personnel, United Nations Volunteers and fellowships was included as from 1991. Experience has shown that it has proven very difficult for a great number of agencies and UNDP field office to provide data on personnel components in the required format. Several UN agencies encounter difficulties in apportioning cost of the personnel components in view of insufficient links between administrative and financial records. Resulting in less then representative data being available for presentation in the Annual Statistical Report.

PREPARATIONS

Statistical data on procurement of goods and services and the personnel components for operational activities are requested from 42 UN organizations as well as by UNDP’s network of Country Offices. To facilitate collection and compilation of the large number of data, IAPSO provides pro-forma tables available from the IAPSO website or on diskette, together with instructions for completing the reporting requirements.

The 2003 report compiles information provided by 30 UN organizations and 121 UNDP Country Offices. IAPSO relies entirely on the co-operation of the reporting entities and, in general, the responses have been encouraging and the quality of data has steadily improved from previous years. The information from UNDP Country Offices was provided for projects under National Execution (NEX) and Direct Execution (DEX) modalities.

Data collection from UN agencies involves processing of reports on procurement of goods and services received from supply divisions and procurement units. Data on procurement is reported based on country of procurement for goods and country of head office for services. Moreover, procurement orders and contracts for services are reported on the basis of contract amount and not on expenditures incurred. It is, at the present time, not feasible for most UN agencies to report data based on country of origin of goods nor on actual expenditures.

Data on procurement of goods and services are based on reports from ECLAC, ESCAP, ESCWA, FAO, IAEA, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, ITC, ITU, PAHO, UN/PD, UNCTAD, UNDP, UNDP/IAPSO,UNECE, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNOG, UNON, UNOPS, UNOV, UNRWA, UNV, WFP, WHO, WIPO and WMO . No data were reported by CTBTO, ICTR, ICTY, IMO, UNECA, UNU, UPU, WTO.

Almost all UNDP country offices supplied data on the procurement of goods and services, except for the following based in these countries; Botswana, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles, Sudan, Togo and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

TRENDS for 2003

The overall procurement volume of UN Agencies during 2003 increased to USD 5.08 billion from USD 4.5 billion in 2002, representing an increase of approx. 9.3%. This increase is attributable to most UN agencies experiencing an increase in overall procurement volume. It is noteworthy that FAO, UNICEF and WFP all had increases in procurement volume of 73%, 23% and 20% respectively.

Procurement from Developing countries has increased by USD 446 million in absolute terms with an increase in percentage terms of almost 5 % from the previous year. This result continues the trend of recent years, showing that programs implemented by UN agencies to improve procurement from developing countries are taken hold.