BPPA Chief Executive Officer Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman gave this information at a dialogue held at a hotel in the capital today. Photo : BUILD

DHAKA, April 24, 2025 (BSS) - The government is in the process of 
implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) and this huge task 
involves massive capacity and awareness building, legal coverage and 
rephrasing of all procurement documents.
 
Mirza Ashfaqur Rahman, chief executive officer of Bangladesh Public 
Procurement Authority (BPPA), IMED under the Planning Ministry, informed this 
at a Policy Dialogue on Bangladesh's SPP Policy held at a hotel in the 
capital today.

Md. Sakhawat Hossain, director of the BPPA, made an elaborate presentation on 
the roadmap of BPPA to implement SPP, said a press release.

Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) in collaboration with 
International Trade Centre's (ITC's) SheTrades Initiative, with support from 
the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), organised the 
programme to disseminate reports on a survey on SPP Policy to identify policy 
implementation challenges and opportunities.

Bangladesh has made its public procurement system digitized, though not 
fully, but a major portion of procurement is now done through the much-known 
e-GP (electronic Government Procurement) system.
 
Mirza Ashfaqur said now the government is focusing on implementation of SPP, 
which is an obligation for achieving target 12.7 of the Sustainable 
Development Goal (SDG) in public procurement. "This needs a massive awareness 
among all concerned including women entrepreneurs and tenderers," he added.

A steering committee, headed by Planning Adviser, is looking after the 
implementation. With this view, BPPA is in consultation with the stakeholders 
and as part of it, the authority is going to conduct further consultations 
with women entrepreneurs and other concerned sectors.
 
BPPA will first go for pilot implementation of SPP in six products stipulated 
in the SPP Policy approved by the government in 2023.

Referring to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's 2023/24 Women's Report, 
Ashfaqur said, women's entrepreneurship is steadily growing across the globe, 
and women are becoming increasingly involved in high-growth, innovation-
driven businesses. Yet they continue to face unique barriers-including 
unequal access to markets like public procurement.
 
As of the most recent data, women own approximately 7.2 per cent of 
businesses in Bangladesh, according to the Labour Force Survey 2022, that 
indicates major gender disparity in entrepreneurship in the country, said 
BPPA chief executive officer.

Despite comprising about half of the total workforce, women are substantially 
underrepresented in business ownership, he said, adding, "In the global 
arena, where women own about one in every three businesses, Bangladesh's rate 
is notably lower, highlighting the need for targeted policies and initiatives 
to promote women's entrepreneurship and address the barriers they face."

Ashfaqur said this is the reason for which the implementation of the SPP 
Policy is not only a public sector responsibility rather it is a social 
commitment.

Ferdaus Ara Begum, CEO of BUILD, presented the survey report highlighting 
some specific requirements for Women Owned Enterprises (WoEs) to be in 
business and their participation in public procurement activities.
 
Survey findings show that 90 percent of surveyed WoEs participate in public 
procurement, of which 60 per cent favouring the Request for Quotation (RFQ) 
method, and only 30 percent using the more complex Open Tendering Method 
(OTM). She urged for massive awareness among all, especially women, to raise 
awareness.

Diyina Jem Arbo, Policy Lead of ITC's SheTrades initiatives, highlighted a 
gender responsive monitoring and evaluation framework with a standard 
definition of women-owned business.
 
She underscored the need for women entrepreneurs to understand the gender 
provisions in the public procurement processes and their ways to navigate the 
process. 

Diyina presented an action plan to measure the impacts created by the gender 
responsive M&E framework. She stressed the output indicators to be SMART to 
be impactful.
 
Finally, she stressed the need for an Action Plan side by side with a well-
planned Roadmap for this a structured data base from all the PEs in the 
country is required.

The event was attended by a number of women entrepreneurs, procuring 
entities, officials of BPPA, development partners to interact on the issue. 
Women tenderers and entrepreneurs raised the challenges they face in 
participating in public procurement.