RESEARCH
LPL EDITIONS
RESEARCH ACADEMY
HAPPENING
RESEARCH
Administrative Law
Procurement for a Better Tomorrow: Transparency and Sustainability in Public Food Supply
Maria João Estorninho
Francisco Bombillar | University of Granada
Belén Burgos Garrido | University of Granada
Maria Aparecida Cardoso da Silveira | FDUL
Ana Cristina Pratas de Oliveira | UL
Nuno Miguel Antunes Nobre | Lusófona University, Department of Tourism, Economics and Organisations
Highor Martinho Beividas | FDUL
Katharinnea Albuquerque | FDUL
Ongoing
Summary
The Right to Food is recognised by international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and highlights the way in which public procurement may be applied as a strategic tool to promote health, sustainability and local economic growth.
By prioritising healthy and sustainable food in public procurement, particularly in the context of school catering, it is possible to improve food systems, reduce environmental impacts and promote public health. This approach also encourages local production chains, contributing to more resilient regional economies.
In Portugal, mechanisms of transparency and social control are fundamental to legitimising public administration and combating failures and corruption in public procurement processes. This approach promotes the active participation of society, through social oversight and transparency in public procurement, which are essential elements for strengthening governance and ensuring that public resources are used efficiently and ethically.
Public procurement, when managed in a transparent manner and aligned with social, environmental, economic and health objectives, can generate wide-ranging benefits for society.
Objectives
The main objective is to enhance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the application of technical specifications in food public procurement procedures in Portugal. The SDG requirements will be developed and integrated into a specific framework that can be applied and assessed at local, regional or national level.
The specific objectives that will contribute to the main objective of the project are:
● To analyse supporting materials and tools to assist stakeholders and decision-makers in implementing the SDG requirements in new contracts.
● To improve the integration of existing concepts, assumptions and practices, in order to achieve the expected outcomes of food public procurement and public policies.
● To integrate sustainable and healthy food into a common framework of mutual benefit (e.g. health, environment, economy, social, cultural), for implementation in the technical specifications to be introduced in tender procedures.
● To demonstrate to decision-makers the potential of procuring sustainable and healthy food through food public procurement.
● To identify the main driving factors for the procurement of sustainable and healthy food through food public procurement.
● To consult stakeholders in order to identify and understand the barriers and opportunities in the procurement of sustainable and healthy food through public procurement.
● To contribute to promoting and increasing the consumption of sustainable and healthy food.
● To contribute to the promotion of healthy eating habits from childhood.
● To contribute to reducing the risk of developing non-communicable diseases in childhood.
● To help improve the quality and nutritional characteristics of food and meals in schools.
● To analyse Comparative Law with regard to the treatment of food law.
● To identify the challenges of procuring new foods within public procurement.
● To study transparency as a general principle of food policies.
● To identify the mechanisms of transparency and social control in public procurement, made available by state bodies and organised civil society.
● To carry out a comparative analysis of the mechanisms of transparency and social control in public procurement provided by state bodies and organised civil society.
● To study food waste and food donations.
● To study food innovation and alternative proteins.
● To identify, among the available mechanisms, those that are the most effective (most used by citizens).
Relevance
Social control, through the direct scrutiny of citizens, especially users of public services, is essential in a democracy. However, its effective realisation requires that the State’s legal systems and, indeed, State action itself ensure mechanisms that enable and promote it – one of which is precisely public procurement. This makes the study of the mechanisms of transparency and social control in public procurement in Portugal particularly relevant, as they allow for the fulfilment of a truly participatory democracy.
It is even more relevant to carry out this study in the field of food law, as this is a right guaranteed by several instruments of international law.
In fact, the relevance of this research project lies precisely in the fact that public procurement can help public markets achieve better outcomes in terms of food safety, protection and nutritional quality of the food circulating in Portugal – whether domestically produced or imported.
However, it is necessary to improve the adequacy of public procurement policies in order to respond to this specific need.
To enrich this project, a comparative analysis with the systems of other countries will be carried out.
This research project thus aims to contribute to the expansion and enhancement of social control over public procurement in Portugal and in other countries.
