APPRRU collaborates on Global Revolutions VII conference

Attendees at the 2015 Global Revolutions VII conference at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham.

Attendees at the 2015 Global Revolutions VII conference at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham.

APPRRU members at Global Revolutions VII (from left) Ama Eyo, Geo Quinot and Sope Williams-Elegbe with Annamaria La Chimia of the PPRG.

APPRRU members at Global Revolutions VII (from left) Ama Eyo, Geo Quinot and Sope Williams-Elegbe with Annamaria La Chimia of the PPRG.

APPRRU once again supported the Public Procurement Research Group of the University of Nottingham in hosting the seventh event in the series of international conferences under the banner of Public Procurement: Global Revolution. This year’s event was held from 15 to 16 June 2015 at the East Midlands Conference Centre at the University of Nottingham in the UK. Apart from acting as chairs of various conference sessions, three APPRRU researchers read papers at the conference.

Sope Williams-Elegbe presented a paper on “Debarment: A Cross-Jurisdictional Evaluation”.

Williams-Elegbe delivering her paper at Global Revolutions VII.

Williams-Elegbe delivering her paper at Global Revolutions VII.

Ama Eyo’s paper was entitled “E-procurement in practice: Reflections on the “SQuID” experience in Wales”.

Geo Quinot presenting at Global Revolutions VII.

Geo Quinot presenting at Global Revolutions VII.

Geo Quinot spoke about “Balancing functionality assessment and policy considerations in complex procurement in Africa”.

Quinot focuses on procurement and innovation at 2015 Procurement Week

Prof Geo Quinot, Director of APPRRU, participated again in the Welsh Procurement Week 2015 organised by Bangor University’s Institute for Competition & Procurement Studies (ICPS) from 16 to 20 March 2015. The week-long event included discussion of various aspects of public procurement law, policy and practice and culminated in the National Welsh Procurement Awards 2015.

Prof Geo Quinot addressing Procurement Week 2015

Prof Geo Quinot addressing Procurement Week 2015

Quinot delivered a paper that focused on the link between innovation and procurement. In it he argued that:

“There seems to be strong evidence and subsequent growing consensus that public procurement can be a very significant factor in supporting broad-based innovation and that this is a very promising tool that states have available to support innovation. The sheer volume of public procurement and the possibility to tailor that significant buying power towards innovative outcomes result in a powerful demand-side measure in support of innovation, a mechanism that any economy that is serious about innovation cannot ignore. However, from a regulatory point of view there are numerous questions that will have to be carefully considered in order to calibrate a procurement system to achieve maximum innovation policy objectives. In some respects these are fairly fundamental questions about how we conceptualise the procurement function in law and how we subsequently design the institutional framework within which this function operates.”

Quinot’s presentation can be viewed at this link.

More details on Procurement Week 2015 are available here.

British Academy awards grant for African procurement research capacity building

The British Academy has awarded a grant of £74 000 under the Newton Advanced Fellowship Scheme 2014 to Prof Geo Quinot of APPRRU (as applicant) and Prof Sue Arrowsmith of Nottingham (as co-applicant) for a period of two years.

The purpose of the grant is to continue the work started under an earlier British Academy grant that saw the creation of APPRRU as a platform to facilitate research on public procurement law in Africa. The current project will aim to strengthen collaboration between the University of Nottingham’s Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG) and APPRRU. It will also provide information and awareness of issues facing Africa to enable scholars and policy makers from outside Africa to take these into account.

The project programme will involve research resulting in scholarly articles in this field at the end of the two-years as well as teaching-related development, especially at post-graduate level. It will furthermore have important long-term objectives in supporting and developing the capacity of APPRRU to facilitate scholarship in this area in Africa. A key objective is thus to draw on and transfer the expertise of the PPRG in establishing and maintaining a centre of excellence in scholarship in public procurement, involving primary research, research collaboration such as through dedicated internet portals and conferences, teaching (especially at postgraduate level), capacity development beyond the university such as of practitioners and public officials, and direct participation in the development of policy and regulatory instruments in public procurement.

APPRRU Deputy Director Williams-Elegbe recognised as one of the top researchers at SU

Dr Sope Williams-Elegbe of APPRRU was recognised as one of 92 researchers at Stellenbosch University who made the largest contribution to accredited publications and doctoral graduates at the university based on their 2012 outputs.

A total of 92 researchers performed in one or more of the three categories that were used for this purpose. With regards to accredited publications, two categories were taken into account, namely SU researchers who made the largest contribution with regards to the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET)`s research publication subsidy units (cut-off 3.96 units), and SU researchers who produced the largest number of accredited research publications in collaboration with their national and international research partners and students (cut-off 10 publications) – in both categories the 2012 output year information was used. In this round, a third category was introduced that gives recognition to the contribution of researchers who produced 2 or more PhD`s in 2013.

Prof Eugene Cloete, Vice Rector (Research and Innovation) stated that publications and doctoral graduates are the most important outputs of SU researchers. “These activities contribute greatly to the expansion of the reputation of SU as an outstanding research university. More important is the fact that new knowledge generated at SU is being transferred to a worldwide audience in this way, and ensures the application of research results and the establishment of high-level human capacity”. Prof Cloete furthermore thanked SU researchers for their exceptional contribution to SU`s research efforts and mentioned that researchers who produce these types of outputs of the highest quality can be regarded as one of the most important assets at any university.

Williams-Elegbe speaks at the 4th Caribbean Public Procurement (Law&Practice) Conference

From the 1st to the 2nd December, 2014, Dr Sope Williams-Elegbe of APPRRU was invited to speak at the 4th Caribbean Public Procurement (Law & Practice) Conference, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. She presented a paper on “Promoting Collective Action against Corruption” which can be found here. Her paper examined successful instances where collective action by the private sector had an impact on corruption in a particular jurisdiction in order to provide guidance for the Caribbean region. Corruption in public procurement and more generally is a problem in many developing countries and it is increasingly being realized that the private sector has to provide leadership in fighting corruption through collective action in states where the public sector is unwilling to do so.

Williams-Elegbe at the conference (centre) with Reginald Dumas (left) and Chris Yukins during the workshop

Williams-Elegbe at the conference (centre) with Reginald Dumas (left) and Chris Yukins during the workshop

Williams-Elegbe also led a workshop with Professor Chris Yukins of George Washington University, USA on “Defence Procurement: Managing Debarment”.

Williams-Elegbe participates in the First National Conference on Public Procurement, Nigeria

On 10 November 2014, Dr Sope Williams-Elegbe of APPRRU was invited to speak at the First National Conference on Public Procurement, at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria. The conference was a collaborative event between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the 36 states of the federation and was intended to provide a platform for dialogue and creation of synergy between procurement at the state and federal level. Sope’s paper was titled “Public Procurement Reforms: An Analysis of Examples in the African Region” and focused on the kinds of procurement reform in selected African countries. A copy of her presentation can be found here. Attached is a picture of Sope with Ms Marie-Francoise Marie Nelly, the Country Director of the World Bank, Nigeria, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, the Governor of Edo State, Nigeria and Dr. Ama Eyo also of the APPRRU and Bangor University, Wales.

Dr Williams-Elegbe (second from right) with (from left) Ms Marie-Francoise Marie Nelly, the Country Director of the World Bank, Nigeria, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, the Governor of Edo State, Nigeria and Dr. Ama Eyo also of APPRRU and Bangor University, Wales

Dr Williams-Elegbe (second from right) with (from left) Ms Marie-Francoise Marie Nelly, the Country Director of the World Bank, Nigeria, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, the Governor of Edo State, Nigeria and Dr. Ama Eyo also of APPRRU and Bangor University, Wales

Quinot participates in Amsterdam conference

On 19 November 2014 Geo Quinot of APPRRU participated in a conference on The Public Private Divide: Conference on Semi-public Institutions and Public Contracts at the VU University Amsterdam hosted by the Public Contracts: Law & Governance programme of the Kooijmans Institute for Law and Governance. The aim of the conference was to discuss the public-private divide from various points of view with a focus on the position and role of semi-public institutions and of public contracts. Quinot’s paper focused on semi-public institutions and how these hybrid entities can be understood within traditional approaches to private and public law.

The conference culminated in the public defence by Niels Jak of his PhD dissertation entitled Semipublieke instellingen: De juridische positie van instellingen op het snijvlak van overheid en samenlevingIn writing this study, Jak visited APPRRU twice to conduct research on the position of semi-public institutions in the South African context.

Speakers at the conference: From left: Proff Frank van Ommeren (VU), Quinot, Chris Jansen (VU), Ulrich Stelkens (University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany) & Mark Freedland (Oxford)

Speakers at the conference: From left: Proff Frank van Ommeren (VU), Quinot, Chris Jansen (VU), Ulrich Stelkens (University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany) & Mark Freedland (Oxford)

APPRRU hosts workshop on procurement law reform in South Africa

 

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

In September 2014 APPRRU hosted a workshop at National Treasury in Pretoria around procurement law reform in South Africa. Leading legal practitioners in the area of public procurement regulation joined academics from APPRRU and policy-makers from Treasury to discuss current initiatives in drafting a new public procurement regulator statute that can provide the institutional basis for comprehensive reform of the public procurement regulatory regime. Participants discussed a working draft bill prepared in the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer in Treasury as well as the procurement chapter of the draft Treasury Regulations under the Public Finance Management Act. The workshop was a follow-up on the earlier work done by Prof Quinot of APPRRU for Treasury on the legal landscape governing procurement regulation in South Africa.

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

Participants at the APPRRU workshop

APPRRU researchers participate in Global Revolutions conference

Dr Sope Williams-Elegbe, deputy director of APPRRU, presenting a paper on public procurement law reform in Africa at the Public Procurement Global Revolutions VI conference.

Dr Sope Williams-Elegbe, deputy director of APPRRU, presenting a paper on public procurement law reform in Africa at the Public Procurement Global Revolutions VI conference.

Three APPRRU researchers, Sope Williams-Elegbe, Ama Eyo and Geo Quinot, participated in the Public Procurement Global Revolutions VI conference, held at the University of Nottingham in the UK from 24 to 25 June 2013.

The conference brought together researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from across the world to deliberate on current issues in public procurement regulation. The APPRRU researchers brought an African perspective to the discussions.

APPRRU was also one of the collaborators in organising the conference.

Dominic N Dagbanja

Dr Dominic Dagbanja

Prof Dominic Dagbanja

Prof Dominic N. Dagbanja is Associate Professor at the Curtin University Law School, Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. He previously worked at the University of Western Australia Law School as a Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester Law School as a Research Associate and was Lecturer in Law at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration where he taught Contract Management and Legal Environment for Business. He practised law with the corporate and commercial law firm of Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah, in Accra, Ghana and  was a Senior Legal Officer at the Public Procurement Authority of Ghana. He has published extensively on international investment law and public procurement law in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. He is also the author of The Law of Public Procurement in Ghana (Lambert Academic Publishing 2011). Dr Dagbanja’s article, The Intersection of Public Procurement Law and Policy and International Investment Law, won the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development-Society of International Economic Law Award for Research in Investment and Development in 2020.