Welcome to URBACT Online Course on Strategic Procurement
What is the EU policy framework around procurement? How are the European Procurement Directives driving procurement in European cities and Member States? What are their overarching principles?
Meet Valentina Schippers-Opejko, the Coordinator of the EU Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement.
Promoting cooperation between cities, Member States, the European Commission and other stakeholders, the Partnership is one of the key initiatives mentioned in this second introductory module designed to help cities achieve wider social and environmental goals.
In this video, Valentina tells you more about the Directives, how they are transposed at national level, and can offer a framework for cities to endorse and implement strategic procurement.
Dive Deeper
Find out more about the initiatives mentioned in the module:
- The EU Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement is one of the original Partnerships establised in 2017 following the Pact of Amsterdam. Their final action plan puts forward a package of actions that can help cities to address the challenges they experience related to innovative and responsible public procurement. An E-learning module complements the plan and gives you more tools and ideas to put the plan's recommendations into practice.
- Big Buyers for Climate and Environment is a European Commission Initiative for promoting collaboration between big public buyers in implementing strategic public procurement for sustainable solutions.
- Buying for Social Impact (BSI) is a project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) and the European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) to promote the use of social considerations in public procurement procedures.
Read more:
- Buying green! A handbook on green public procurement, European Commission, 2016
- Making Socially Responsible Public Procurement Work, 71 Good Practices Cases, European Commission 2020
Side-event
On 17 March, URBACT and the EU Urban Agenda on Innovative and Responsible Procurement invited participants to the Online Course to a panel discussion, in order to reflect on the first two introductory modules with the trainers, representatives from the European Commission and EUROCITIES.