Improving Public Health and Governance in COVID-19 Response: A Strategic Public Procurement Perspective

Abstract

Good governance is the basis of dealing with major emergencies and protecting public health. It has become a major issue of the central government to construct a scientific procurement and supply system of emergency supplies. This article constructs the analytical framework of strategic procurement and expounds the realization mechanism of strategic procurement under an emergency situation to reflect China's procurement practice in COVID-19 response and improve public health and governance. Using case study, semi-structured interviews, and the Nvivo text analysis, this study found that emphasizing the strategic function of securing the public health,the top status of MSG, cross-sector procurement team, strong procurement and supply integration, comprehensive and in-depth procurement synergy mechanism are the successful experiences of China's emergency procurement. However, due to the temporary nature of the emergency procurement mechanism, strategic procurement planning, procurement management specialization, and procurement supply integration still need to be improved. The findings of this study further suggest that to improve public health and governance, it is pivotal to reconstruct the government procurement law to make it compatible with the emergency procurement and transform the government procurement system into a strategic procurement in a consistent and coherent way.