AEIDL, in partnership with ICLEI Europe, was commissioned by EASME to collect good practices and raising awareness on socially responsible public procurement in Europe and beyond. The aim was to identify outstanding examples from local, regional, national and European buyers.
(Public Procurement Analysis is ICLEI’s subcontractor; Social Economy Europe is AEIDL’s subcontractor)
The 2014 Public Procurement Directives gave space to promote social aspects, and gender equality objectives in particular, throughout the procurement cycle, from preliminary market consultation, through to the use of reservations and the light regime, and to social award criteria and contract performance conditions. However, public buyers across Europe are not yet fully exploiting the possibilities of public procurement as a strategic tool to support these objectives. To bridge this gap, the collection of 71 Good Practice Cases. Making Socially Responsible Public Procurement Work includes examples where public procurement is being used to promote gender equality. See, for example, the case of the Municipality of Vienna (p. 232 and ff.). In addition, the social media campaign that follows the publication of the good practices has focused on gender equality as a way to raise awareness on the role of public procurement towards this objective.
The specific objectives of this project were the following:
- Improved understanding of successful practices implemented by public buyers related to socially sustainable public procurement;
- Improved understanding of correct bidding practices by social economy enterprises improving their chances of success in public tenders;
- Better understanding of how policies and measures in support of socially responsible public procurement can be designed and implemented;
- Facilitating the uptake of good practices in socially responsible public procurement;
- Facilitating the increase of tenders integrating social considerations;
- Facilitating the increase of social economy enterprises participating/tendering in public procurement procedures;
- Better understanding of the benefits and importance of socially responsible public procurement by public buyers and the general public.
AEIDL coordinated the social media campaign for the project and produced several short videos. AEIDL also developed and published the ‘Making socially responsible public procurement work. 71 good practice cases’ study.