Last week, in Kuwait City, CLDP, in coordination with the Kuwaiti Supreme Council for Planning and Development and the Kuwaiti Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies, held a conference to launch a multi-phase effort to increase the levels of transparency and competition in Kuwait’s public procurement system. The conference was the result of an assessment of gaps in the procurement system, using feedback from public and private sector stakeholders. CLDP experts included procurement experts from the U.S. General Services Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Even though Kuwait passed a new procurement law in 2016, serious challenges remain in its source selection practices, bid protest mechanisms, and payment of vendors, and U.S. companies continue to find the Kuwait system to be inconsistent and unpredictable despite the improvements in the law. The conference educated Kuwaiti procurement personnel on the importance of best value evaluation methods and prompt payments as critical tools to increasing competition in the procurement market and thereby reducing waste and costs to the government. Seventy Kuwaiti procurement personnel from at least 30 government agencies participated in the conference along with high-level Kuwaiti administrative judges, who review bid protest disputes. CLDP will continue its programming over the coming year to provide in-depth workshops on each phase of the procurement process and to encourage the adoption of more transparent and competitive practices.