Trade agreements, public procurement & sustainability: promoting economic development and social equality

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in collaboration with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariat and Sustainability and Procurement in International, European, and National Systems (SAPIENS), organises a hybrid seminar on "Trade agreements, public procurement & sustainability: promoting economic development and social equality" on 17 June 2025 from 9:00-12:30. The seminar will take place in a hybrid format both online and at the WTO Headquarters in Geneva.

During the seminar most recent state-of-the-art findings in research on sustainable public procurement will be presented as well as yet-to-be-published studies from the SAPIENS Network (https://sapiensnetwork.eu​), an EU-funded programme championing interdisciplinary research on sustainable public procurement. This multidisciplinary research addresses the social, environmental and economic challenges of 21st-century procurement and cross-border trade, with implications for current and future public procurement policy. The EBRD is one of the SAPIENS Network partnering organisations, aiming to grow global knowledge on sustainable public procurement together.

In order to actively support governments with an interest in or commitment to facilitating private sector competitiveness and cross-border trade in transition economies by joining the WTO 2012 GPA, the EBRD initiated the EBRD GPA Technical Cooperation Facility back in 2012 in cooperation with the WTO Secretariat. The WTO 2012 GPA provides a framework for reciprocal market access while setting policy and governance standards for public procurement markets. It creates opportunities to integrate public procurement markets into global trade networks, especially for transition economies, through active engagement as observers or through accession negotiations.

Through targeted EBRD assistance, five transition economies successfully acceded the WTO 2012 GPA: Armenia, Montenegro, Moldova, Ukraine, and, most recently in 2023, North Macedonia. Other EBRD countries of operation, including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Türkiye, have benefited from capacity-building activities. With the EBRD expanding its banking operations in 2024 the EBRD GPA TC Facility became open to Iraq and Sub-Saharan economies.