Hospitals, schools, roads. How citizen perceive government depends heavily on how well they think these public services are working. It is what they expect to get from paying their taxes.
However, public contracting is vulnerable to fraud, corruption, mismanagement, and inefficiency. With US$ 9.5 trillion spent yearly on publicly awarded government contracts, creating efficiencies and savings through standardized and open contracting procedures will boost your government budget.
Open contracting has become an essential tool to re-build trust between government, citizens and businesses. Disclosing contracts and making public how and to whom public monies are spent, creates a myriad of benefits: Governments receive value for money on their projects, save time and costs, engage with citizens on monitoring that businesses are doing their job, and create more competition among firms participating in bidding processes. Its also a very tangible example of open data in action: citizens get why this information should be open. Its their money and they want to see the benefits.
Two thirds of the countries participating in the Open Government Partnership have made commitments to more open and participatory public procurement. This session will provide a forum to share how countries can implement open contracting as part of the NAP.
Our speakers will feature on-the-ground examples and share concrete ways for how open contracting works in brief, stimulating lightening talks. In participatory learning/coaching groups will provide targeted learning around the key issues of implementing open contracting including:
- Interpreting contracting data,
- Introducing the Open Contracting Data Standard
- Discussing ways how citizen participation and constructive engagement between governments and non-state actors add value to contract outcomes.
