The Sustainable Public Procurement activities of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Public procurement made up around 17.2% of Kyrgyzstan's GDP in 2015. Initial reforms to the Law on Public Procurement were made in 2015 introducing more transparency and efficiency in public expenditure processes. An online bidding system was launched in 2015 with more than 2000 registered businesses. Sustainable public procurement (SPP) policies and tools are lacking. A revision of the public procurement system is being recommended under the (draft) PAGE Green Economy Stocktaking Report for the Kyrgyz Republic (2017). There is a need for a full roll-out of the SPP approach, including policy development, capacity building and SPP implementation, in Kyrgyzstan for the uptake of SPP by the government. To ensure the uptake of sustainable goods and services by the market, there is a need for the business sector to enhance the greening and environmental performance of industrial enterprises through technical assistance, capacity building and awareness raising, in particular in selected priority sectors. The project "Enhancing sustainable public procurement for the regional transition to inclusive green economy in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA)", which is led by the UN Environment Europe Office and implemented jointly with UNECE and GGKP, aims to strengthen the capacity of selected countries in the EECCA region (including in the Kyrgyz Republic) on sustainable public procurement and strengthen the capacity of businesses to respond to public tenders with sustainability criteria. The project is implemented between 2019 and 2021.
A funding agreement was signed with the Bishkek based NGO "Promotion and Development Centre". With the assistance of UNEP, the Centre produced a national assessment of the policy, legal, regulatory and institutional gaps for inserting sustainability criteria in the procurement process and provide recommendations on how to address them. The Centre also conducted a prioritization exercise, in order to identify key product and service areas on which the activities will be focused. They collected data on procurement and government expenditure with the support of the project's national Steering Committee and other relevant institutions.


