Public procurement: importance of civil society engagement
The movement for Open Government has created the means for revolutionizing the way governments work across the world, generating the space for active citizen participation and driving efficiencies in governments. Open Contracting is a prime example of the transformative nature that opens governments by creating a single and trustworthy source of open, accessible and timely information on public contracts to serve government and business and engage citizens in identifying and fixing problems with public services. Making the contracting process more transparent has been proven to have an impact on improving competitiveness as well as curbing corruption and strengthening trust in the process.
The EBRD the Open Contracting Partnership signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to embed local civil society participation into the public procurement reforms. In partnership with the EBRD Civil Society Engagement Unit in close collaboration with the Legal Transition Programme we intend to create a framework for enlisting civil society organisations to support public procurement reforms and use open data to monitor procurement and improve frontline services and public probity. OCP and the EBRD work together to:
- advocate for public procurement reforms to create open, transparent, and competitive public procurement regulatory frameworks that deliver value for money in the use of public funds;
- engage with civil society in public procurement reforms and support the use of open data;
- integrate an open contracting approach in public procurement reform strategies and design;
- support governments in the implementation of the Open Contracting Data Standard.
At this event we team up with civil society stakeholders to discuss opportunities to improve public procurement and public services using Open Government tools available to create public procurement open to business and local communities.
The Workshop will deliver on how true, accurate and collected at the source public procurement data also empowers citizens and helps holding governments more accountable while building trust in government, providing a feedback loop on public procurement performance and generating opportunities for new and data-driven digital services. In particular, sessions will deal with the use of data-driven tools for monitoring and evaluating public procurement systems, in order to compare, gauge the progress, and generate ideas for further improvements, as well as to discuss latest related developments.
Objectives of the event:
Dedicated sessions will bring together representatives of different stakeholder groups from across Europe, including open government promoters and civil society organizations, to discuss how civil society may play a significant role in the implementation of open contracting reforms, keeping governments accountable and contracts efficient by constant monitoring activities, building communities & monitoring ecosystems.
