OECD: Promoting Gender Equality Through Procurement

Procurement / By /

OECD: Promoting Gender Equality Through Procurement

April 26, 2022
Procurement

COVID-19 showed that women have been disproportionately affected by the economic and social fallout from the pandemic(OECD, 2020[1]), as the pandemic exacerbated existing structural inequalities and gender norms (United Nations, 2020[2]).

We know that public procurement can directly affect the quality of life and well-being of citizens through government procurement strategies, practices, and systems. Through gender-responsive public procurement policies and practices, governments and buyers can improve gender equality and encourage suppliers to improve their performance by using public procurement as an instrument to advance gender equality.

Last year, our Spend Network team put together the research report, Procuring Inequality, which explored the gender pay gap in public contracting in the UK. Our research was designed to identify the existing pay gap in the dynamic between public sector buyers and suppliers.

The OECD Public Governance has released a policy paper on the matter, Promoting gender equality through public procurement: Challenges and good practices, which looks at how governments and public buyers can use their purchasing power to promote gender equality and encourage suppliers to improve their performance on women’s empowerment. It explores the different ways that gender considerations can be integrated into public procurement policies and processes and discusses the challenges that both policymakers and procurement practitioners face in promoting gender equality through public procurement.

Key points of the paper include:

 Using public procurement as a policy tool to promote gender equality requires public buyers to be open to finding innovative solutions and approaches. They must not only apply a gender-sensitive approach in their procurement decisions but also be able to deal with the multidimensional challenges of gender-based inequalities.

 While public procurement can be used to promote gender equality, both policy-makers and practitioners should always first evaluate whether public procurement is the right tool to integrate gender-based considerations. Given that public procurement is now used to achieve a wide number of strategic outcomes, it is often hard for procurement practitioners to determine which specific outcome should be targeted in each procurement opportunity.

 Greater investment should be made in the pre-tender phase of the public procurement cycle, to prepare the entire tender process and help ensure that longer-term benefits are achieved. Better management of the procurement cycle as a whole is crucial for gender-inclusive procurement.

 Successful gender-responsive procurement requires involving and engaging different stakeholders as well as strengthening the capacity of the procurement workforce. Furthermore, it is important that potential bidders clearly understand the strategic priorities of both the national government and the individual public buyers, so that they can design their bids and adjust their business operations and practices accordingly.

 While a number of countries have policies and regulations to stimulate gender-sensitive public procurement, there is still an implementation gap, amplified by a lack of knowledge and data, a lack of clear evaluation mechanisms, and a lack of understanding of gender-promotion practices.

 Opportunities for improving coherence among different policy areas should be also explored. Procurement is unlikely to be the most innovative area in terms of gender mainstreaming and gender promotion, but it can have real impacts when a universal gender mainstreaming tool is applied to all policy areas.

You can find the OECD paper in full here and find the Spend Network Procuring Inequality report here.

Get in touch with us if you’d like to know more about our gender pay gap report, our procurement data, or our research capabilities.

June 6, 2023

Net Zero Needs Further Action, Says NAO

A new National Audit Office (NAO) report highlights that further action is needed by the UK Government to strengthen governance and delivery...
Read more...
June 1, 2023

Critical Audit on Australia’s Frigate Procurement

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has recently released its findings into a review of the Department of Defence (Defence) 2018 procurement...
Read more...
May 30, 2023

Space To Innovate- New UK Gov Opportunity

The UK Government's, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) Space Systems Programme has announced it is seeking proposals to aid UK Defence...
Read more...
May 25, 2023

EU Commission Move To Electronic Procurement

The European Commissions Directorate Generate for Informatics (DIGIT), has launched a new dynamic purchasing system for software licences and associated services (SIDE...
Read more...
May 22, 2023

Biosecure Procurement Trial

The UK Government yesterday announced new measures for domestic tree seed production and biosecurity procurement requirements. The next round of the Domestic...
Read more...
May 18, 2023

New Industry Body White Paper Review of Covid Procurement

Since early on in the pandemic, there has been significant focus on the procurement of Covid related PPE, due to unprecedented nature...
Read more...
May 11, 2023

EU Council Joint Procurement Under European Peace Facility

The European Union Council has adopted an assistance measure worth €1 billion under the European Peace Facility (EPF) that will further contribute...
Read more...
May 10, 2023

Measuring Sustainable Public Procurement

One of the projects we are most proud of is working with The Open Contracting Partnership to create a Sustainable Public Procurement...
Read more...
May 3, 2023

From Hero to Zero – UK Digital Marketplace Shuttered

Within living memory, the UK’s Crown Commercial Service (CCS) had planned to reshape a large swathe of public procurement in the image...
Read more...
May 2, 2023

We Sell Data, Not Seats.

Why we sell data not seats? We're data analysts. We really understand the data we gather. We've been doing it for 15...
Read more...
May 2, 2023

New Tech Disrupts Traditional Government Procurement

A Silicon Valley startup, GLASS, has created a revolutionary new tech, Glass Commerce, an e-commerce marketplace enabling compliant transactions between government buyers...
Read more...
April 25, 2023

Green Public Procurement: New Report

At Spend Network, we are always on the look out for governments, think tanks, research bodies, and other organisations who are working...
Read more...
April 25, 2023

EU Agrees on Anti-Coercion Instrument

The European Commission and European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade have agreed on an anti-coercion instrument (ACI) which will enable public procurement...
Read more...
April 13, 2023

£256 Million Contract for Cyprus Awarded by UK Government

The UK Ministry of Defence  has awarded a £256 million contract, for work, repairs, servicing, and facilities management for the UK defence...
Read more...
April 5, 2023

Endorsements For Export Agencies

Endorsements are a win-win for export agencies. Exporters face new challenges, both in terms of increased barriers to trade following the pandemic,...
Read more...

Newsletter

Compelling research, insights and data directly into your inbox.

Recent media stories

Search

Recent articles