The National Task Force on Sustainable Public Procurement has been launched to steer government’s efforts at improving public procurement system in Ghana.The launch follows the signing of an agreement on promoting Sustainable Public Procurement during President John Atta Mills’ visit to Switzerland in August this year.A more effective procurement system is critical to achieving Ghana’s growth and poverty reduction goals since it is estimated that public procurement expenditure is over 50% of Ghana’s national budget. Even a marginal improvement of the procurement system can be highly beneficial to the economy.Sustainable Public Procurement considers social and environmental criteria apart from economic requirements in the procurement process for the selection of suppliers. Therefore the introduction of Sustainable Public Procurement in Ghana demonstrates a commitment by both the Government of Ghana and the Government of the Swiss Confederation to sustainable development.The National Task Force is made up of key stakeholders from Civil Society, the Trades Union Congress, Industry, Commerce, Standards Oversight Bodies, Environmental Protection Agency, Local Government, Institutions of Engineers and Architects as well as the Academia. Their mandate is to lead the process of introducing sustainable public procurement in public procurement at all levels of Government - Ministries Departments and Agencies as well as Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.The agreement signed between the Republic of Ghana and the Swiss Confederation in August provides approximately USD 2.7 million grant to support the Public Procurement Authority to enhance the principles of transparency, accountability and sustainability in public procurement by strengthening the monitoring and evaluation system used by the Public Procurement Authority and increasing the volumes of sustainable goods and services procured by the Government of Ghana. This is the second phase of Switzerland’s support to PPA.In the first phase which began in 2003, Switzerland through its State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) provided technical assistance to the Public Procurement Authority to develop a procurement monitoring and evaluation (M&E) tool, called the Public Procurement Model of Excellence (PPME), which is used by the PPA to collect data and to assess the level of compliance and performance of Ghana’s procurement entities.The Embassy of Switzerland in Ghana implements the Swiss Economic Development Assistance to Ghana granted through the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Switzerland’s assistance to Ghana concentrates on sound macro-economic policies and transparent public finances, financial sector development, strengthening; trade, competition and investment climate, and basic infrastructure and regulatory development for Ghana’s public utilities, in particular, energy.