Announcing Lift Learning Circles: Share and learn from peers to put open contracting into practice

The open contracting journey can be long and complex but you don’t have to go at it alone. There’s a whole community of open contracting implementers around the world and they have a lot to share. The quality and diversity of applications for Lift have shown us that you want more opportunities to share and learn from peers. While we were only able to select five teams to participate in our inaugural Lift program, so many of our applicants proposed inspiring and ambitious projects too. We don’t want the engagement to end there!

Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ll be launching a series of learning circles, intensive online discussions focused around key themes such as advocacy, supplier engagement and using the Open Contracting Data Standard. Unlike a webinar, these will be small learning groups that will be small and interactive throughout. Sessions will be held in English and Spanish. Though each session will only accommodate 20 people (sign up fast!), they will be recorded. To be the first one to hear about these sessions and join the discussion, sign up the mailing list here. 

Learning Circle #1

Making a case for open contracting.  
In this session, we will talk about the common blockers to adopt open contracting and how we can make the business case for it, internally and with a coalition of stakeholders.
Host: Hera Hussain, Open Contracting Partnership
Instigator: Mukelani Dimba, Board member of Open Contracting Partnership and Head of Development, International School for Transparency
When: Wed, 6 Nov⋅8:30 – 9:45 am GMT
We will cover,

• How to craft the perfect pitch
• Finding allies within and outside government
• Building and sustaining momentum for your open contracting project 

Learning Circle #2

Supplier engagement & increasing SME participation. 

Public procurement can become a vehicle for driving social value and economic regeneration. In this session, we’ll discuss the programs, policies and data sets that are lowering the barriers to enter and win government contracts.
Host: Hera Hussain, Open Contracting Partnership
Instigator: Sascha Haselmayer, CEO of Citymart
We will cover, 

• Creating the business case for diversity and inclusion
• Interventions to support young businesses, minority-run businesses and/or women-owned businesses
• Opportunities to collaborate

When: Thurs, 21 Nov 2019⋅1:00 – 2:15pm GMT // 

Learning Circle #3

Improving health outcomes through open contracting. The link between improved health outcomes and stronger, more transparent procurement systems is clear – according to the WHO. In this session, discuss with peers who are working on this issue and bringing an open contracting approach to healthcare.
Host: Viktor Nestulia, Open Contracting Partnership
Instigator: Tom Wright and Tambudzai Matenga, OC4Health team at Transparency International 
When: Thursday 4 Dec 2019, 12:00 – 1:15pm GMT 

Sign up.

We will cover,

• Updates from OC4Health projects
• Common challenges
• What strategies are working

Learning Circle #4

Map your existing system to the OCDS.  In this session, we will review the Field mapping template and get hands-on help with filling it out. This template is a key step in any OCDS implementation is to map data fields from existing systems to the OCDS schema. This OCDS 1.1 Field Level Mapping template is designed to make the process as easy as possible and to ensure that the appropriate data is captured for each stage but we know it can be a daunting place to start, and you may have questions! This is the session to discuss them all.
Host: David Opoku, Open Contracting Partnership
Instigator: OC Helpdesk
When: 16 December, 10:00 – 11:15 GMT

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And we have many more planned on topics such as change management, infrastructure, public participation and impact measurement. Sign up for updates.