ReSPA, in cooperation with the Centre of Excellence in Finance (CEF) and SIGMA/OECD, is organizing the workshop “Smart Procurement 4 Strong Governance – Boosting Competition, Digitalisation and Value for Money under the EU Growth Plan”, on 20–21 October 2026 in Skopje, North Macedonia.

Public procurement is one of the most consequential functions of public financial management and sits at the core of Chapter 5 of the EU acquis. The latest SIGMA Monitoring Reports, consolidated in SIGMA Paper No. 76 “Overview of public procurement systems in the Western Balkans”, point to a persistent gap between law and practice: legislative frameworks reach 84% of the maximum score for alignment with the EU acquis, while implementation reaches only 66% and results only 38%. Single-bid tenders, reliance on the lowest-price criterion and the use of exemptions and special regimes remain common across the region.

The workshop aims to support the administrations of the Western Balkans, together with Moldova, Ukraine and Armenia, in moving from formal compliance towards procurement systems that deliver genuine competition, integrity and value for money. It builds on the expertise of SIGMA/OECD, CEF and CIPFA, and on the experience of the Ministry of Finance and the Public Procurement Bureau of North Macedonia, including the Electronic System for Public Procurement (ESPP) and the red-flag mechanism for unreliable economic operators.

The first day will focus on the state of play, competition and value for money – single-bid tenders and market participation, the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) criterion, life-cycle costing and green procurement, and professionalisation and contract management. The second day will address digitalisation and interoperability of e-procurement systems, integrity and corruption-risk management, and experience-sharing across procurement units, concluding with a reform design lab in which each administration will develop a country-specific action point to take forward after the workshop.

Participants are invited to bring a short case or lessons-learned example from their own institution (e.g. a single-bid, cancelled or contested procedure, or a good-practice example) to feed into the discussions and the reform design lab.

Profile of the participants:

The primary working language for this workshop is English, so the potential participants should have a good command of English, as interpretation will not be available. Each administration may appoint up to 3 participants – public administration professionals, assuming mid- and/or senior positions in the following types of institutions:

1. Central public procurement institutions (offices, agencies, bureaus) or ministries responsible for public procurement policy, including bodies operating the e-procurement system (1 participant);
2. Contracting authorities or central purchasing bodies with significant procurement portfolios (1 participant);
3. Procurement review bodies or oversight institutions, such as audit institutions, competition authorities and anti-corruption bodies (1 participant).

Attached is the draft Agenda with the background information. The working language will be English.