Over the years, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed an extensive understanding and experience in providing technical assistance and support to the conduct of democratic elections, through either UNDP headquarters or its country offices.UNDP (previously through UNDP/IAPSO) has become a major actor in the procurement of electoral materials, ranging from ballots and ballot boxes, to ink, stationery, and digital voter registration equipment. UNDP has recently increased its focus on the crucial pre-polling period of planning and budgeting for procurement of electoral material. This new focus reflects a recognition that the will of the people, freely and fairly expressed through periodic and genuine elections, is the basis of the authority and legitimacy of governments—and, moreover, that by far the greatest share of an electoral budget is taken up by the procurement of electoral material and services. It also reflects the increasing concern over how public funds are being managed in general.

UNDP has reinforced the procurement function and related higher-level advisory services by establishing a Procurement Services Office (PSO) in New York and Copenhagen under the leadership of James Provenzano. Two sub-units deal directly with elections: the Special Advisory Team (SAT), covering advisory services, and the Global Procurement Unit (GPU), representing the operational arm.

Special Advisory Team on Elections

SAT Elections provides continuous assistance to UNDP country offices and electoral management bodies (EMBs) through advice and support on planning and budgeting, on-site training and, in most cases, targeted exploratory, formulation and assessment missions. The team works in close collaboration with UNDP’s Bureau of Development Policy, whose governance department, under the leadership of Linda Maguire, provides fundamental political parameters and guidance for UNDP’s overall direction and strategy.

SAT Elections is part of the EC-UNDP Task Force for Electoral Assistance, which focuses on supporting the electoral cycle rather than a single electoral event, including but not limited to planning, budgeting and implementing electoral assistance and providing specific guidance on project document design, resources, partnerships, evaluation and procurement.

UNDP/SAT seeks to raise awareness that procurement has a much larger scope than generally acknowledged. The common understanding of procurement is limited to the purchasing of goods. However, support areas, such as capacity building of state structures, including election commissions, and support to civil society organisations and national NGOs for civic education, are all services that also require the commitment of public funds. Therefore, when these services are not covered via a programmatic framework, they are also considered procurement activities and therefore need to go through a competitive process if UNDP is involved. Furthermore, UNDP/SAT seeks to increase the focus on ethics and professionalism in the prevoting planning and procurement phase.

In addition, UNDP/SAT will strive for critical analysis of when it makes sense and when the environment is right to have an election, rather than pushing or supporting early elections to, for example, enable an unrealistic government agenda or an international community effort to identify a counterpart, through the ballot, for the reconstruction of the country. SAT Elections will introduce a methodology of assessing the quality of elections and electoral planning in terms of transparency and fairness from a procurement point of view—in other words, a meaningful framework for assessing the quality of the crucial pre-planning phase, which will affect the end result, as well as the credibility of UNDP.

The most commonly experienced obstacles and risks in electoral procurement preparations are the decisions on implementation methodologies, development of technical specifications and terms of reference, time constraints, insufficient budgets for procurement needs and national ownership and capacities.

Technological innovations in the administration of elections raise new issues with regards to cost effectiveness and sustainability. High-tech solutions offer the hope of credible elections with fewer possibilities for human error at lower cost. This opportunity should ideally lead to a debate on the appropriate technology for a particular country context. UNDP/SAT has noted that while introducing new technology can reduce costs and increase sustainability in the longer term,
it poses a tremendous cost for procurement of equipment. In some cases, the new technology may be used only once, and by only one public institution, unless synergies emerge in a wider institutional modernization plan. Electoral budgets are often full of funding gaps, particularly when new technologies are being introduced, and this pushes a tremendous burden onto development partners.

Acknowledging these factors, UNDP/SAT is pursuing a new procurement approach. In addition to the usual procurement of electoral equipment (as per established UNDP rules and regulations), UNDP/SAT is now examining the options of leasing electoral material and technical expertise from suppliers, or even outsourcing turn-key electoral services, for example by using a benchmark of the voter registration of a certain estimated number of people. These methodologies are being investigated, and so far suppliers seem positive towards these new concepts.

Finally, UNDP/SAT and GPU will continue to have Long Term Agreements (LTAs) for the most strategic and essential electoral materials. The purpose of the LTAs is to ensure efficiency in procurement turn-around time and to limit repetitive tendering exercises within the boundaries of UNDP procurement rules and regulations. LTAs also provide guaranteed quality assurance and quality control and the benefits of economies of scale, both in terms of products and logistics.

Contact SAT Procurement Advisors on Elections:
karen.hong@undp.org OR
anne-sofie.holm@undp.org