Once per year the Big Buyers Working Together (BBWT) brings together all 10 of its Communities of Practice (CoPs) in a special in-person event. BBWT seeks to strengthen the collaboration between public buyers with strong purchasing power, and promote the wider use of strategic public procurement for innovative and sustainable solutions. The event will focus on how public buyers can drive a more sustainable, social and innovative Europe.
During panel discussions and interactive sessions, the event will bring CoP members and other relevant stakeholders together to reflect on BBWT’s progress in the past year, and discuss the future of strategic public procurement in Europe. It will do so by facilitating collaboration and interactions between members from different thematic CoPs, and other stakeholders. Participants will also get the opportunity to find out some great examples of how host city Helsinki has implemented public procurement.
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This event is organised by ICLEI Europe. The Big Buyers Working Together project is a European Commission initiative.
Agenda
25 March
08:30 - 09:00
Registrations and coffee
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09:00 - 09:30
Welcome and introductions
- Danko Aleksic, BBWT project coordinator, Eurocities
- Jorma Lamminmäki, Head of the Procurement and Tendering Unit, City of Helsinki
- European Commission, speaker tbc
09:30 - 10:45
Panel Discussion: How can public buyers drive a more social, sustainable and innovative Europe?
This panel discussion will engage CoP members to dive into the role public buyers cover in driving a more sustainable, social and innovative Europe. It will be an opportunity to discuss the work done in this regard throughout the project’s CoP’s.
Speakers to be announced.
10:45 - 11:15
Coffee Break
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11:15 - 12:30
The future of the Public Procurement Landscape
This interactive session aims to gather feedback by the audience for policy makers in light of the revision of the Public Procurement Directives. A public procurement legal expert (tbc) will present the functioning of the current Directives and provide predictions/proposals for the future. The presentation will be followed by an interactive session with attendees. Breaking into small groups they will consider the biggest challenges they face, and come up with proposals for how these can be overcome.
12:30 - 13:30
Networking lunch
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13:30 - 15:00
Capacity Building & Interactive session on the role of Market Dialogues
This session will be guided by an expert and it will be split into two parts:
- Capacity building (30 mins) on the role of market dialogues and how to best carry them out.
- Interactive Session (in groups) to design the best possible market dialogue for a procurement, based on the the topics provided by the expert.
Presentation of main solutions to the audience.
15:00 - 15:15
Wrap-up, conclusions, closing of the event
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15:15 - 17:15
Study visits
Site visits will give participants the opportunity to see how Helsinki is implementing sustainable, social and innovation procurement in practice.
