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The program has accomplished what it was expected to, which was to initiate the key change processes towards a more effective and transparent public procurement system in Serbia. The most important result is to be observed in the development of new skills, knowledge and ideas, primarily among those charged with performing public procurement procedures in Serbian institutions. The focus was on introducing quality criteria and adding new considerations to the table, including those related to green and socially inclusive public procurement. In that regard, the program was about the change in mind-set. Although a notable progress in that regard has not been registered, it would be accurate to assess that the contribution did contribute to awareness raising among the contracting authorities, the bidders and oversight entities in that regard. A lot of focus was on transparency of the public procurement system and rebuilding of trust among bidders and contracting authorities. To that end, the program has helped streamline and promote digital solutions, including the Registry of Bidders, the e-Portal and the e-Learning platform. The program has facilitated the new phase of support by identifying opportunities and broadening its focus to probe more deeply into new areas that emerged as relevant during the implementation (such as using public procurement as a tool to achieve policy objectives in other areas and zooming in on the anti-corruption aspect of public procurement and its correlation with business enabling environment). Detailed account of results: On the level of outcome, the results have been as follows: 1. Strengthened purchasers' and bidders' capacities for public procurement During the reporting period, two public opinion polls on transparency and effectiveness of public procurement were carried out (at inception and final project phase), including both bidders and citizens as target groups. The key finding in relation to this result area is that citizens were more positive towards public procurement in 2022 than in 2021 (54% to 48%). Additionally, the business community, i.e. the bidders rated the current legal framework in 2022 as better than in 2021 (78% to 62%). 2. Transparency and efficiency through digital solutions The same opinion polls showed that in 2021, 96% of surveyed representatives of contracting authorities believed that the introduction of the e-Procurement portal contributed to the improvement of the implementation of public procurement procedures, while in 2022 that percentage was 91%. In 2021, more than two thirds of bidders' (71%) positively evaluated the functioning of the e-Procurement portal, whereas in 2022 that percentage was higher (77%). The opinions of surveyed contracting authorities and bidders on the changes in the Registry of Bidders were positive (bidders: 78% in 2021 to 83% in 2022, contracting authorities: 85% in 2021 to 81% in 2022). 3. Control, enforcement and public-private dialogue Progress in this area was measured by tracking the number of analyses and studies produced on transparency, environmental impact of public procurement and other issues. Through the project, the following analyses were made: the Comparative Analysis on Monitoring Public Procurement Contracts Execution (provided detailed insight for the budget inspection of the Ministry of Finance on how in five EU member states contract execution is being monitored) and the Analysis of the Quality of Planning and Market Research (provided insight on how the planning for public procurement and market research is being done in Serbia). On the level of impact, the following results have been listed: 1) Improved impact of public spending on competition and market development; 2) Improved cost-effectiveness (quality/price ratio) and impact of public spending on environment and social inclusiveness; 3) Having contributed to the decrease of corruption and irregularities in public procurement; 4) Building trust in the public procurement system and 5) Contributing to COVID-19 recovery via more efficient public spending. The assessment of impact-level results has been made based on the following: 1) Average number of bids per public procurement procedure/number of bidders participating in public procurement: According to the official report by the Public Procurement Office (PPO), the average number of bids in 2020 was 2.6, while in 2021 it was 2.5. At the time of writing the report, the PPO had not published their report for 2022. This stagnation could be explained due to the fact that COVID-19 started in 2020 and lasted throughout 2021 and a major part of 2022, with the bulk of resources invested into acquiring the necessary medical equipment and the vaccines to stop the negative effects of the pandemic. It was also noted that the trust among bidders that a public procurement procedure would be fair and transparent was still lacking. Therefore, there is room for improvement in this regard. 2) Total number of registered bidders: According to the available data by the Serbian Business Registration Agency, the total number of registered bidders at the end of 2020 was 10,115. The number of newly registered bidders at the end of 2021 was 2,834, whereas at the end of 2022 it was 1,833. Since the new upgraded Registry of Bidders became effective at the end of 2022 and the new electronic registration was made available from 1 January 2023, the number of newly registered bidders in the period concluding with 14 February 2023 was 218, out of which 50 bidders have registered electronically. It can be concluded that there is a steady increase in the number of bidders and that project did produce an impact in terms of demonstrating the importance of the registry. However, it use of the new electronic way of registering still needs to be improve. 3) Share of SMEs in total number and value of awarded contracts: According to the data from the PPO's report for 2020, the share of SMEs in the total number of awarded contracts was 42.5%. In 2021, this number rose to 84.4%. Comparably, in 2021, SMEs partook in the total value of awarded contracts with 62.4%, whereas is 2021 this percentage was higher (70.6%). 4) Percentage of public procurement procedures carried out according to the most economically advantageous (MEAT) criterion: According to the PPO's report for 2020, the MEAT criterion was used in only 6% of public procurements. In 2021, there was a slight decrease from 6% to 5%. The assessment is that the pandemic has contributed to the consistent use of price as the only criterion. Additionally, it was noted that contracting authorities are reluctant to use other criteria than price, mainly due to the lack of knowledge that is required to define technical criteria. 5) Increase in the number of procedures incorporating environment and gender equality criteria: Until 2021, there was no data on the number of procedures that were conducted using environmental and gender equality (social) criteria. According to the data by the PPO office, in 2021 environmental criteria were used in 650 procedures, whereas social criteria were used in 86 procedures. During 2022, NALED prepared a proposal for introducing the indicator of number of public procurement procedures incorporating social criteria in the draft 2022 Action Plan for implementing the Program for the Development of Public Procurement in Serbia 2019-2023, which was accepted. Additionally, trainings and workshops were organized and contracting authorities were open to receive mentoring support. 6) Average length of the public procurement procedure carried out by the local authorities: According to the data from the PPO's report, the average duration of open procedure, which was the most used procedure, was 48 days in 2021. This is a positive decrease in comparison to 2020, when it was 52 days. The key results on output level have been as follows: - Training programs have been developed in three selected sectors and 30 trainings were held for 628 representatives of the contracting authorities from state institutions and local self governments throughout Serbia. Trainings were organized in cooperation with the National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA) and Provincial European Affair Fund; - Mentoring support has been provided to contracting authorities by three partner organizations: ACES (procurement of architectural, engineering and planning services), Transparentnost (procurement of business and management consulting and related services) and MSP-IKT (software development); - Together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, five categories of products and services for which the green procurement criteria will be developed have been selected. Market research has been conducted to identify the best local experts with relevant experience in related fields of public procurement; - The Study of Impact of Public Procurement on the Environment with recommendations has been produced, including the review of the legal framework in Serbia and the EU, current situation in Serbia, analysis of institutional practice and published green procurement procedures, examples of good practice and recommendations for the improvement of the green public procurement system in Serbia; - Recommendations for better incorporation of horizontal issues (environmental protection and climate change and gender equality and social inclusion) in public procurement as award criteria have been developed. Public procurement has been recognised as an instrument for achieving environmental objectives and NALED was recognized as an important partner in the implementation of activities from the National Action Plan for Development of Circular Economy of the Government of Serbia; - Seven trainings on the use of green criteria in public procurement were held for 208 representatives of contracting authorities; - Detailed analysis of social elements in public procurements with recommendations was developed and three trainings on the use of social criteria in public procurement were held for 50 representatives of contracting authorities; - The Association of Bidders has received support for organizational development with the new Act on Systematisation and support in the drafting of the Annual Report for 2021 and Annual Workplan for 2022; - 25 trainings have been organized for 611 bidders to improve their capacities to participate in public procurement procedures; - A mobile application for the e-Procurement portal has been developed and made available on the Play Store and App Store. The e-Procurement portal has also been translated in English in order to increase the chances of foreign companies to participate in tenders. The mobile application and the translation of the e-Procurement portal allow public procurement officers and bidders access to procedures from anywhere and are expected to improve the overall transparency and efficiency of the system; - The Registry of Bidders has been upgraded based on the Functional Analysis of the Registry of Bidders and Specification of Necessary Improvements with the goal to optimize the administrative procedures for registration, improve the transparency and efficiency and reduce costs; - The e-Learning platform was developed and populated with nine modules of structured training materials, best case examples and tests, to provide broader outreach and continuous availability of education materials to contracting authorities and bidders; - A comparative analysis on practices in monitoring the execution of public procurement contracts in selected EU Member States has been completed; - Trainings for judges and prosecutors based on the Analysis of the Educational Needs of Judges and Public Prosecutors in the field of public procurement have been delivered, reaching a total of 31 judges and 19 prosecutors. The goal of these trainings was to introduce the participants to the new public procurement law and to strengthen their skills in using the e-Procurement portal; - The financial management and control system of the Republic Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures has been updated; - Three workshops have been organized for the representatives of the Republic Commission for the Protection of Rights in Public Procurement in order to strengthen their capacities and improve their knowledge on specific topics, such as green public procurement, MEAT criteria and public-private partnerships; - The Analysis of the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU regarding typical irregularities in public procurement procedures in the field of legal protection has been conducted; - The analyses of the frequency and quality of special acts prepared by the contracting authorities, as well as the model of special act have been developed, to serve as a guidance for the regulation of different issues such as: planning, implementation of public procurement procedures and monitoring of the execution of public procurement contracts; - A study visit to Germany for the representatives of civil society and media has been organized, to allow for learning on civil engagement and mechanisms of dialogue with authorities, key risks and forms of corruptive behaviour in the EU countries and the most effective ways of interacting and taking action to address them; - Training has been provided to the National Convention on the European Union in Serbia in the area of green criteria, social public procurement and procurement of media services; - The Communication Plan has been implemented consistently focusing on the promotion, visibility and dissemination of project activities. A very important result concerns the organizational strengthening of NALED in response to issues identified by Sida during the assessment phase. During the course of implementation, NALED went through a comprehensive and participatory process based on a clearly defined Action Plan for monitoring the implementation of organizational changes and came up with a list of new procedures that were submitted to Sida for review and opinion: new and/or updated Quality Management Procedure, Risk Management Procedure, Whistleblowing Procedure, Procurement Procedure and Internal Document and Record Management Procedure, as well as instructions for the respect of the rights of persons whose data is being processed, instructions for using the privacy notice and for the analysis of personal data processing and risk assessment.

The overall objective is organized in four items: 1) To improve the impact of public spending on competition and market development, 2) To improve the cost-effectiveness (quality/price ratio) and impact of public spending on environment and social inclusiveness, 3) To contribute to decrease of corruption and irregularities in public procurement, as well as building trust in the public procurement system and 4) To contribute to Covid-19 recovery via more efficient public spending. The overall objectives are expected to be reached by targeting the following specific objectives, structured as the three project components/result areas: 1) To contribute to improved implementation of the new Law on Public Procurement (legal and strategic framework) by strengthening the capacities of purchasers (institutions) and bidders (companies), 2) To improve the transparency and efficiency of the system for planning and monitoring of public procurement by improving and promoting the use of digital solutions, 3) To improve the oversight and enforcement of rights in public procurement and strengthen the role of civil society and general public.