Costa Rica advances in the promotion of green public procurement with the support of the United Nations and the Basque Public Environmental Management Company, Ihobe - 08 January, 2012.
Thanks to the support provided by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and by the Basque Government's Environmental Management Company, Ihobe, Costa Rica's central government is strongly promoting green public procurement and contracting in its administration and throughout the country.
Costa Rica forms part of
the group of seven pilot countries, which, with the support of the UNEP, are employing the
approach of the Marrakech task force on sustainable public procurement. Its
objective is to devise policies and action plans aimed at the implementation of
public procurement by the Costa Rican administration which will take social and
environmental criteria into consideration.
From 11th to
13th July 2011, the country participated in the meeting held in
Panama together with the other Latin American pilot countries who are
participating in the UNEP project (Chile, Colombia and Uruguay) and
representatives of other Latin American countries. The aims of the
meeting were to present the results obtained by the pilot projects in the
formulation and implementation of sustainable public procurement policies; to
discuss the methodology used and how to improve it; and to consider the
expansion of sustainable procurement in the other countries.
During the meeting, Costa
Rica showcased its advances in this field and distributed the guide to
sustainable public procurement to the participants present. This guide was
published in 2011 and was compiled with the technical support of Ihobe.
Therefore, Ihobe's green
procurement manual served as a point of reference in the
environmental section of the Costa Rican guide. The material was adapted to
reflect Costa Rican laws and current market conditions in the American country.
Source: www.ihobe.net
January 8, 2012.