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excluded. Kenya recently announced it would amend its public procurement regulations to reserve 30% of government contracts for women, youth and persons with disabilities. International trade agreements and rules may, to some extent, limit governments’ discretion in deploying preference schemes such as margins of preference or reservations. This is because preferences and reservations have often been used to discriminate against foreign firms, whereas one of the primary objectives of international trade agreements is to open up domestic procurement markets to foreign firms. In many cases, government can still pursue preferential procurement policies as long as those policies do not discriminate against foreign women-owned firms and are otherwise permitted by national legislation.
Capacity-building programmes Capacity-building programmes are an important component of a comprehensive preferential procurement system. The targeted assistance strategies discussed earlier are primarily intended to increase the demand for goods and services from womenowned businesses. For the system to be effective, the demand must be matched by supply. To address this, governments must establish programmes that build the capacity of women-owned businesses to compete successfully in public procurement markets and deliver the goods and services that the governments require to fulfil their public functions. Women’s business organizations and other trade support institutions can be valuable partners.
Measuring progress towards policy objectives As with any system, monitoring and evaluation are necessary to ensure compliance with preferential policies and programmes, to measure progress towards government or organizational objectives, and to make adjustments where necessary to improve the system. Although an in-depth discussion of monitoring and evaluation is beyond the scope of this guide, it does provide a brief overview of the results-based management approach used by the International Trade Centre and suggests ways in which that approach can be applied to a preferential procurement system for women-owned businesses.