- Senior officials from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) attended a day-long knowledge exchange conference co-delivered by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and Department for Business and Trade (DBT).
- Speakers from UK Plc presented on supply chain sector insights from projects that create climate, social equity, sustainability and sectoral benefits.
- The conference enabled IPA to position the Green Cities and Infrastructure Programme (GCIP) as trusted advisers to ADB.
On 11 October 2024, the IPA and DBT, in collaboration with ADB – the region’s largest infrastructure and climate finance bank – hosted the Supply Chain and Procurement Conference in Manila, Philippines. This event, the first of its kind, helped advance critical goals central to the UK Government’s strategic objectives for ADB and GCIP’s activity in the region, including strengthening partnerships, advancing supply-chain engagement and promoting sustainable, climate-conscious project development across Asia. The conference also marked a significant step towards enhancing regional cooperation and agreeing on best practices for building resilient, environmentally responsible supply chains.
The IPA, a member of the GCIP consortium, jointly delivered the conference in collaboration with partners in the DBT and British Embassy in Manila. The conference focussed on sharing insights and best practices in procurement approaches, with a focus on building supply chain and public–private partnership (PPP) project preparation as well as the UK approach to managing projects coming back to the UK Government.
The timing of the conference, as ADB transitions from an infrastructure to a climate bank, has effectively enabled the IPA to position the GCIP consortia as trusted advisers that can offer support at the programme, portfolio and corporate level on embedding sustainability into procurement approaches and their pipeline development. The insights from the conference have strengthened the need for further direct engagement and capacity building training with ADB, as countries in the region are increasingly relying on the bank for upstream support on PPP contract management and as an interlocutor between the private sector and governments when implementing policies and regulations.
The conference was split between Official Development Assistance (ODA)-funded sessions co-delivered by the IPA, DBT and Crossrail International (a member of the GCIP consortium) to share ideas and themes around approaches to procurement and delivery, and non-ODA funded sessions primarily focussed on UK innovations and updates with the UK supply chain. The latter sessions sought to deepen UK supply chain engagement and present next steps in UK–DBT engagement.
The conference was attended by senior officials from the ADB’s Procurement, Portfolio and Financial Management department, Office of Markets Development and Public Private Partnership, Sectors Group and Climate Change team.
Next steps
The IPA and DBT have since held several follow-up conversations with ADB on future collaboration, including:
- Digitisation
- Guidance, training and advisory support on IPA’s 5 Case Model and Assurance Review
- Collaboration on future technical assistance
- Future knowledge exchange opportunities on PPPs
A regional workshop with IPA – to further link with other interventions led by GCIP consortia members in Southeast Asia – is now being considered.
If you are interested in finding out more please contact the IPA International team, which engages with international governments and multilateral organisations to promote best practice and improve infrastructure.
Published
13/01/25
