OBP and AKPA collaborate on "social procurement": 63 employees in 9 companies winning tenders
The agreement between the Centralized Purchasing Operator (CPO) and the National Employment and Skills Agency (NESA) is becoming a concrete model of what is known in European practices as "social procurement", directly linking public funds to the creation of new jobs at the local level.
According to the data made public, within the framework of this agreement, 63 unemployed people have been employed so far, in 9 high-value projects, by 9 companies that won the tenders. The employments were carried out in Tirana, Fier and Berat, where the contracting entities have fulfilled the obligation to employ job seekers referred by the Labor Offices, in the area where the investment is being implemented.
This mechanism relies on the existing legal framework for public procurement and active labour market policies. Law No. 162/2020 “On public procurement” provides for the possibility of including social criteria in tender documents, giving contracting authorities the scope to require the fulfilment of objectives with a social impact, in addition to economic ones. Specifically, the provisions relating to the special conditions of contract implementation and the evaluation criteria allow for the inclusion of elements that promote employment and social inclusion, in accordance with the principles of equality and competition.
On the other hand, Law No. 15/2019 “On the Promotion of Employment” and the relevant by-laws regulating the functioning of AKPA, create the basis for mediation in the labor market and the referral of job seekers to private or public entities. Cooperation with OBP extends this role beyond traditional mediation, by integrating AKPA into the public investment cycle.
In practice, this means that tenders for high-value facilities include a mandatory clause requiring the employment of a certain number of unemployed people from the relevant region. The winning companies cooperate with the Employment Offices to identify candidates, creating a direct chain between procurement, investment and local employment.
This model aims at several objectives simultaneously: increasing employment in areas where public investments are made, reducing the social costs of unemployment, and strengthening the social accountability of economic operators that benefit from public funds. In essence, budget funds are not seen only as means for the realization of a physical object, but also as an instrument for the production of social value.
In a context where the OBP has consolidated its role as a central structure for the development of focused procurement procedures, the inclusion of social clauses constitutes a step towards the modernization of public policies. This approach is also in line with the European Union directives on public procurement, which encourage the use of social and environmental (ESG) criteria as part of the evaluation of offers and contract performance conditions.
For now, the figures – 63 employees, 9 projects, 9 employers – represent a first concrete test of social procurement in Albania. If the implementation is sustainable and transparent, the OBP-AKPA agreement could serve as a model for a new phase of combining economic and social policies, where every public investment creates not only infrastructure, but also jobs and real opportunities for citizens.
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