How we are planning to transform public contracting: consultation on our draft new strategy

There are few better places than high up in Bogotá to reflect on our progress in opening up the $9.5 trillion market in government contracts (per year). All our team are together here for a week of planning and strategizing

One of our most inspiring stories emerged in this city, where innovations by the mayor, the department of education and the procurement agency busted open an expensive, inefficient and closed market in school meals. Millions of dollars have been saved, competition is up threefold, a price-fixing scheme exposed, and over 800,000 children get better food each day.

Our new strategy is on exactly this theme. How do we move beyond a bit more transparency in public contracting to drive systemic change in the politics, policy and data around public contracts? How can we focus more on real-world problems and work with frontline agencies so they deliver massively better results for ordinary people?

We know that open contracting is hard, diligent work and takes time, so we really appreciate all the lessons and advice that we’ve heard for our strategy, across multiple design workshops, surveys and individual conversations.

We are delighted to be sharing v.1.0 draft with you today. Hopefully, you will feel that we’ve listened, that we’ve built on the key shifts that we shared last year, and we’ve been able to articulate clearly how we are going to put those lessons in practice.

At 2,500 meters, Bogotá is just a short hop on the path to the moonshot of making public contracting open-by-design but hopefully, you feel that we are getting closer.

As ever, you get the last say. Follow this link and put your comments and reflections directly into the document. If you are especially appalled, excited or feel constrained by a GoogleDoc commentary, message me at ghayman@open-contracting.org and we can talk. Many thanks and we can’t wait to hear from you!