Professor Sue Arrowsmith's presentation to the 2021 Summer School of the International Anti-corruption Academy on procurement and the pandemic

On 29^th August Professor Sue Arrowsmith presented an afternoon session to the 2021 Summer School of the International Anti-Corruption Academy on the lessons learned for public procurement from the COVID-19 pandemic. The presentation was based largely on the findings of the author’s forthcoming book on the regulation of public procurement in the pandemic, Public Procurement Regulation in (a) Crisis? Global Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. This books, which is co-edited by Luke Butler and Annamaria La Chimia of the Public Procurement Research Group and Christopher Yukins of George Washington Law School, will be published by Hart later in Autumn 2021.  

The key lessons elaborated in the presentation included the need to consider – both at national level and in the key international regulatory instruments - better provision and use of advance purchase mechanisms and the need for slightly more discretion to respond to crises balanced with greater information transparency.