Crown Agents was employed in 2009 by a global philanthropic private foundation to fact as a project advisor on an ambitious project to provide computer and internet access to rural areas throughout Vietnam. The objective of the project was to close the digital divide between urban and poor communities and provide new opportunities for information exchanges to facilitate advances in commerce, education, healthcare and social interaction.
Under the pilot phase of this project Crown Agents developed a procurement approach, in close collaboration with the Project Management Unit and the donor, to procure the necessary equipment and services to provide internet access to the public in 99 sites in rural areas of Thai Nguyen, Nghe An and Tra Vinh provinces. These sites included provincial and district libraries, school and hospital libraries, and post offices and Crown Agents helped evaluate the suitability of such sites together with the Project Management Unit.
Having developed a procurement strategy for the project Crown Agents worked closely with the Project Management Unit to procure all the necessary good and services under the project. We prepared pre-qualification and tender documents for computers and equipment in accordance with Vietnamese law. This was followed by the short listing of qualified suppliers, providing a bid evaluation report and assisting the PMU with contract negotiations. The procurement process was conducted in an efficient and timely manner.
Following the delivery and installation of the goods Crown Agents visited a sample of the sites to ensure the goods delivered were as per that contracted and were performing adequately. This feedback will help preparations for a country-wide roll-out of the programme expected in 2011. Some of the lessons learned from the procurement and the inspection were shared by the Crown Agents project team with the donor and officials from the Ministry of Information and Communications; Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; Ministry of Planning and Investment; Ministry of Finance; Vietnam Public Telecommunication Fund; and Vietnam Post and Telecommunications at a project workshop in October, 2009.