Moldova - MAPS

Quick facts

	Country: Moldova
	Year of assessment: 2021
	Procurement value: Approx. € 433,341,000 (2019)
	Principal organisation: The Moldovan Ministry of Finance
	Main partners: The World Bank

Background

The World Bank undertook a Country Procurement Assessment Report (CPAR) of Moldova in 2010. Since then there have been important developments in the Moldovan public procurement system. Chief amongst these has been the Public Procurement Law of 2015 and subsequent additions and modifications, creation of National Complaint Settlement Agency (NCSA) in 2017 as well as new responsibilities of the Public Procurement Agency.
In addition, the Government of Moldova is currently undertaking a reform of public procurement system and aims to improve efficiency, value for money, transparency and prevent corruption in public expenditure.
To support the government’s ambitions for the public procurement system, and given the changes to the system since 2010, a thorough assessment of the current situation was needed.
MAPS was found to be the ideal tool for such an assessment, being comprehensive, internationally recognised, and focused on providing concrete input for improving any procurement system.

Process

The Moldova MAPS assessment was carried out between 2019 and 2020. The report received the MAPS Seal of Approval and was published on November 2021.
Access to complete and accurate quantitative data was a challenge. However, the assessment team made sure to compare the results of quantitative analyses with broader, qualitative analyses as a way of testing robustness of conclusions. Additionally, they took care to articulate the limits of data availability and to evaluate the underlying reasons for those limits, resulting in important insights about the procurement system.
The assessment team identified the following points as key factors in the success of the assessment:

- Full and continuous implication and support from the Government of Moldova
- High interest from the public sector, including control bodies
- High interest from the private sector and NGOs
- Good quality feedback on public procurement received from all stakeholders
- High level of participation during consultation workshops
- Openness of data holders to provide data

Key results and impacts

Some of the key recommendations of the assessment were:

Improve secondary legislation and standard documents, and ensure that all procurement methods are enabled in the e-procurement system.
Recognise public procurement as a profession and address the lack of skills and resources in many small contracting authorities.
Advance in the use of centralised procurement, starting with standardised goods required by several contracting authorities.
Improve the coverage, access and completeness of the public procurement data, including for small value contracts, which would in turn facilitate monitoring by civil society.

Led by the Ministry of Finance, the Government of Moldova will use the detailed findings of the MAPS assessment to develop an action plan with prioritised initiatives for improving the public procurement system of the country. This will include both more structural initiatives, meant for the longer term, and initiatives focused on quick wins for the shorter term.

“Working on this assessment together with the World Bank team was a rewarding experience especially knowing its purpose and importance for the country. It was a needed exercise. The openness and cooperation of all stakeholders made the assessment realistic and truly focused on issues that require attention. Therefore, the MAPS findings and recommendations will definitely serve as a solid foundation for us to continue the reforms and mobilize all the efforts to improve our national public procurement system.”

Ruslan Malai, Director

Lessons learned

Given the particular context of the procurement system, i.e. the particularities of the Moldovan public sector as a whole, some of the persons involved in the assessment identified as a challenge to get the assessment team and the local authorities to “speak the same language”. This became especially apparent when analysing the difference between legal/regulatory provisions and the practical reality of the system: When a third-party outsider looks at the facts of the system, they might take a certain interpretation of those facts for given. However, the practical reality might be different for a variety of reasons (political, historical, organisational etc.), and it is not always easy for public officials, who are embedded in this reality, to articulate this.

How can these lessons be replicated (or avoided) in other countries?

The above is bound to be experienced whenever a general framework such as MAPS is applied to the concrete circumstances of a specific country. To handle this, it is important to invest time in the interactions between the assessment team and the local authorities, for example by having priming sessions, where the general conditions of the situation are established, in addition to the sessions where officials are interviewed or otherwise provide input for the analysis itself.