Long Term Agreements (LTAs) are framework agreements maintained with one or more
suppliers for a certain commodity, service, or group of them for a period of up to 3 years
typically. The purpose of establishing Long Term Agreements (LTAs) includes among others:
- to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the procurement process
- to reduce processing timelines within the boundaries of UNDP procurement rules
and regulations
- limit repetitive tendering exercises for standardised equipment and services
- ensure the necessary quality standards are met, by including them under the
agreements and therefore the LTAs guarantee quality assurance and quality
control
UNDP/GPU maintains LTAs with several expert suppliers for a vast range of strategic and
essential electoral materials typically required. The main focus of LTAs in the past has been
to cover commonly procured items for manual registration, following past trends.
Materials requested are in most cases highly diverse, requiring consolidation and special
packing/integration for later distribution. This typically involves complex logistics.
Electoral related materials covered by LTAs include items such as ballot boxes and seals,
voting booths, indelible ink, registration/polling kits, IT equipment, power supplies and
freight forwarding services. Most of these goods are not normally available locally and
therefore covered through global LTAs.
Recent needs assessments, mapping exercises, analysis on conducted procurement and
feedback from field missions, show a trend towards higher technological solutions, e.g.
using Optical Mark Reader (OMR) methodology or introducing comprehensive digital
biometric voter registration solutions. The strategic focus for the immediate future is
thus to increase the scope of procurement tools, such as LTAs/prequalification lists, etc.
to include items of higher level of technology, higher production complexity and higher
security requirements.
Another potential area of expansion for procurement tools and agreements is consultancy
services in the field of elections, for example provision of support and training for domestic
observers; training of political parties on voter registration and polling procedures, etc.;
media support and monitoring services; and support to civic and voter education services.
Nonetheless, tendering processes will continue to be routinely launched due to the
different needs and individual character of each project complexity, volume, promoting
local involvement, etc.
