Rebuilding After Disasters: Why sustainable public procurement can be a practical policy

IISD has developed a preliminary consultation paper that is designed to foster stakeholder discussion on if and how sustainable public procurement can be deployed to promote development and cohesion in a post-disaster situation.

Generally government spending goes up following a disaster, in order to rebuild the economy and guarantee the livelihood of a country's citizens. The World Bank has estimated that, on average, natural disaster-related recovery and rebuilding costs can consume up to 15 per cent of the affected countries' GDP.

In addition to rebuilding, there is also anecdotal evidence that post-disaster procurement, when executed sustainably, can contribute to disaster risk reduction. This is a particular area demanding further research. Both a challenge in implementing SPP and an opportunity arising from it is the implementation of life-cycle thinking in public policy. Such a mindset is needed for public procurement, as well as for disaster and conflict risk reduction strategies.