UN System Procurement Statistics Report - 2007

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. This report is now compiled by the United Nations Office for Project Services as a of the partial-merger between UNOPS and IAPSO in 2008.

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 UN organizations. To facilitate collection and compilation of the large number of data, IAPSO provides pro-forma tables available from the IAPSO website, together with instructions for completing the reporting requirements.

ASR 2007

The 2007 Annual Statistical Report on Procurement (ASRP) was prepared by UNOPS, which has assumed responsibility for collection and compilation of UN system-wide procurement data following the partial merger between UNOPS and UNDP/IAPSO that took effect in January 2008.

The 2007 report analyzes procurement from developing countries and countries with economies in transition (DC/ET), and examines UN agency performance in response to General Assembly resolution 57/279 of January 2003 on Procurement Reform (paragraph 6), which encouraged UN organizations to increase opportunities for DC/ET vendors. Significant progress has been made toward achieving this objective (Figures iii – viii, below, provide details).

In addition, the 2007 Annual Statistical Report on Procurement looks at procurement by UN agencies from vendors that support the ‘UN Global Compact’. This measures engagement by the UN system with companies that take corporate social responsibilities seriously, a consideration increasingly important in today’s global marketplace. While UN agencies give no preferential treatment to Global Compact signatories, the percentage of registered Global Compact vendors receiving UN contracts is nevertheless on the rise.

The 2007 report compiles information supplied by 33 UN organizations. UNOPS relies entirely on the co-operation of the reporting entities. In general, response rates were satisfactory and data quality has improved with the use of better ERP reporting tools. Five UN entities did not provide data for 2007.