Since 2003, Crown Agents has provided procurement services for DANIDA's Vietnam programmes, evolving services to meet its changing needs and the local context.
Working with the Danish International Development Agency (Danida), we have supported Danida's Vietnam grant and loan aid programmes through the provision of transactional procurement, procurement advisory, and procurement training services.
In accordance with DANIDA's guidelines our procurements have exceeded USD $14 million across a range of sectors including fisheries, agriculture, water and sanitation, business, public sector administration and finance and the judiciary.
When the Hanoi Core Statement was drawn up in 2005, donors shifted focus to developing government systems and capacity, including procurement. Crown Agents started to work closely with government agencies and Project Management Units (PMU) to provide procurement advisory and consultancy services, especially for high value and complex procurements such as IT procurements.
In 2008, we began providing procurement audits to Danida and between 2008 and March 2010, audits were conducted throughout Vietnam on countrywide Danida programmes. The audits assessed the compliance of procurement with Vietnamese Procurement Law and made recommendations for the improvement of procurement practices. Reports from each audit were shared with the procuring entity and Danida.
Crown Agents held a workshop to present our key findings from the procurement audits conducted in April 2010, which was attended by Danida programme officers and the deputy head of Mission. We have since received a new contract to review and revise procurement components of the programme manuals, based on findings from the workshop.