Global Report: Open Contracting

Open contractingA transparent procurement process, known as open contracting, increases competition, improves public service delivery, and ensures governments better value for their money. Technical specifications: C... continues to gain momentum, and is on the way to becoming a global norm. Many governments in OGP have assumed open contracting commitments, several of which have led to strong results. Still, important challenges remain that require moving beyond the status quo of contracting reforms:

• Engaging citizens to utilize contracting data for impact is key. Most open contracting commitments in OGP focus exclusively on information disclosure and do not include essential ingredients for data usage, such as citizen feedback loops. Engagement with users may be more important than immediate standardization.
• Higher-quality contracting data is imperative. A lack of high-quality data continues to present challenges. Timeliness and completeness are essential to ensuring greater impact. In addition, usability is key, specifically, getting data out of PDFs and into a machine-readable format.
• Empowering women improves both processes and results. Women are largely excluded from public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t.... Greater gender-disaggregated data collection and disclosure, gender-responsive policies, and citizen engagement would significantly enhance genderOGP participating governments are bringing gender perspectives to popular policy areas, ensuring diversity in participatory processes, and specifically targeting gender gaps in policies to address gov... equality and drive more inclusive economic growth.

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