Public Procurement, Covid-19, health inequalities, and Playful Paradigm

On the face of it the title of this article seems confused by discussing four topics. Public procurement is the process used by municipalities and other organisations to buy goods and services. Covid-19 is the pandemic that has affected all our daily lives and our economies. Health inequalities are the gaps that communities face in their access to health services and in the longevity of lives. And Playful Paradigm is an URBACT Transfer Network which seeks to use play as a means of enabling sustainable economies and social cohesion.

So how do all these topics fit together? Through the Playful Paradigm Transfer Network, led by the City of Udine, the transfer cities have sought to adopt different and more strategic thinking to the process of procurement. All of the cities buy goods and services to promote playful approaches and activities, whether that be gaming events, or toy libraries, or the construction of playgrounds – and through the development of a Guide, Playful Paradigm has sought to provide a step-by-step guide as to how these procurements can become both more playful in their nature and more strategic.

By more strategic, we mean using procurement as lever to contribute towards addressing the economic, social and environmental challenges that Europe faces. Contemporarily, Europe is facing increasing challenges around unemployment, low skills, poor business sustainability, poverty, deprivation, migration, and tackling the climate emergency. With an annual public procurement spend of 2000 billion euros by the public sector across Europe, accounting for 14% of GDP, it is clear that we could and should be using this spending power to contribute to some of these wider challenges.

In many EU Member States and cities, Covid-19 has exacerbated the challenges described above. In the coming years, levels of unemployment will increase, levels of businesses closing down will increase, the gap between the rich and poor will get wider, and the threat of climate change will continue threaten our planet’s sustainability. In addition, Covid-19 has and will widen health inequalities as mortality rates change, as the pandemic affects different demographics in different ways, and as different communities have different levels of access to health services.

And this is how the words in the title of the article fit together – public procurement can be used as a lever to address the exacerbation of economic, social and environmental challenges posed by Covid-19, and subsequently contribute towards reducing health inequalities. And Playful Paradigm can contribute to this by sharing with a wide audience its toolkit that supports municipalities in particular to purchase play related goods and services in a playful and strategic manner.

The process of public procurement is however not just about play related goods and services. URBACT has been focused upon the strategic role of procurement for a number of years now and has developed an online training course on how cities can embed social and environmental considerations into procurement. It is our firm belief that we should not see procurement as a boring, technical and dull function; but something that is exciting and can be used address the contemporary challenges that Europe and cities face.

The future is playful, the future is being more strategic in procurement.   

by Matthew Baqueriza-Jackson is an Ad-Hoc Expert for Playful Paradigm and is the Co-Trainer of the URBACT Online Course on Strategic Procurement.   

Want to know more about Health and Procurement?

The Playful Paradigm Network launched a Podcast series and one of the episodes features the key players mentioned in this article. Listen it here!