Open Contracting in West Africa-IBLF & Development Gway
Open Contracting in West Africa
May 17, 2017
(Extracts from Development Gateway’s website)
IBLF Global, Development Gateway and the Open Contracting Partnership have been studying open contracting readiness across West Africa which culminated with the publication of a series of open contracting scoping studies.
These include:
- Country reports aimed at assessing open contracting readiness in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Liberia, and Guinea;
-A synthesis report highlighting practical steps for encouraging open contracting implementation in these 5 countries and in Cote d’Ivoire; and
-An analysis of the view of the public markets in the 5 assessment countries from British and international businesses interests, conducted by IBLF Global
Over the past 15 years, there has been a marked improvement. Many of the study countries adopted legal reforms aimed at improving the efficiency, effectiveness, competitiveness, and transparency of public procurement systems, engaging civil society and citizens in the process. The Nigerian Bureau of Public Procurement has convened a civil society working group and is developing an open contracting data portal (http://www.nigeriaoc.org/), based on the Open Contracting Data Standard, to facilitate public access to procurement information. Ghana’s Public Procurement Authority publishes substantial data related to the tender, award, and contracting phases of the procurement process, while the Senegal’s Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (Autorité de Régulation des Marchés Publics) has launched a master’s degree program in public procurement.
There remain a number of challenges. In many countries, there is still a gap between procurement laws and their implementation, particularly when it comes to smaller ministries and agencies. Improved access to information is needed, in order for citizens to trust that procurement is being conducted efficiently and legally procurement authorities must review their data collection policies and analytics to enhance their abilities to effectively track market competitiveness, corruption risk, and the performance of procuring entities. Furthermore, all of the countries we studied can benefit from increased support for training and the adoption of appropriate technology tools to facilitate procurement implementation, data collection, and oversight.
The reports can all be found on the UK Government website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-contracting-in-west-africa
