Sustainable Procurement in Fragile States

The document presents a business case for implementing sustainable public procurement in fragile states, highlighting its potential to mitigate risks, combat corruption, and build local industrial capacity. It identifies significant challenges, including weak institutional capacity and political opposition from vested interests, and proposes the use of readiness assessments to tailor procurement policies to individual national contexts.

• Public procurement represents a disproportionately high share of government expenditure in fragile states compared to developed regions. While the EU's public spending was 19 per cent of GDP in 2010 and OECD countries averaged 12 per cent, procurement in fragile states can account for 60 to 70 per cent of all government expenditure, with specific examples including Swaziland (65.9 per cent), East Timor (70.19 per cent), Sierra Leone (70 per cent), and Uganda (70 per cent).
• Sustainable public procurement can act as a risk mitigation strategy in fragile environments. Because procurement is a daily operational necessity for all actors, using it to demand higher levels of transparency, trust, and accountability can help manage risks related to fiduciary failure, security, and weak institutional capacity.
• The policy can be used to combat bribery and corruption, which are often exacerbated in fragile contexts by political cronyism and high-value transactions. By requiring increased disclosure and transparency during the tendering process, sustainable procurement provides a mechanism to scrutinize the deployment of large funds from governments and development partners.
• Sustainable procurement is presented as a cost-effective method for developing local industrial capacity and creating jobs. By providing market certainty, it can encourage the growth of domestic entrepreneurs and infant industries, similar to how countries like the United States, China, Brazil, Chile, India, and Vietnam have used local content requirements.
• Implementing these policies faces significant hurdles, most notably the risk of opposition from domestic economic sectors whose vested interests are threatened by procurement and public finance management reforms. Additionally, the tendency toward "quick fixes" or single-sourcing contracts in emergency recovery phases can undermine the establishment of long-term environmental and social safeguards.
• The report recommends conducting readiness assessments to determine the political economy, existing procurement procedures, and early markets for green goods and services before designing policies. This approach allows fragile states to potentially "leapfrog" development challenges and grow sustainable domestic markets organically.

APA

Perera, O., & Colverson, S. (2012). Sustainable Procurement in Fragile States. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/procurement_fragile_states.pdf

Chicago

Perera, Oshani, and Samuel Colverson. Sustainable Procurement in Fragile States. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2012. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/procurement_fragile_states.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Perera |first1=Oshani |last2=Colverson |first2=Samuel |title=Sustainable Procurement in Fragile States |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=August 2012 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/procurement_fragile_states.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{perera2012sustainable, author = {Perera, Oshani and Colverson, Samuel}, title = {{Sustainable Procurement in Fragile States}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2012}, month = aug, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/procurement_fragile_states.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }