LONDON — The U.K. Department for International Development has said its commercial procurement reforms — introduced in 2017 following concerns about profiteering and unethical behavior by some contractors — are working, even as suppliers say they are penalizing smaller groups, stifling innovation, and driving down standards.
DFID published its first annual procurement and commercial report last week, covering £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) of aid spent through commercial suppliers in 2018-19. It comes after the department introduced a host of sweeping reforms to the way it works with private contractors, including a new code of conduct, fee caps, open-book accounting requirements, and measures intended to make it easier for small- and medium-sized enterprises to bid for tenders.
The report assesses the impact of the changes to date and also outlines a number of further changes, including rolling out the reforms to other aid-spending departments and applying a more commercial lens to its spending through multilaterals.