Introduction

We made great strides in our mission to open up and transform public procurement in 2023.

Every year we set ourselves hard targets to demonstrate real-world impact and change, not only on policies but also on the whole procurement market and on people’s lives. We are proud to have met or exceeded those targets in 2023.

Our work with partners to improve flood defenses benefited up to six million vulnerable people in Assam, India; nearly 100% of Lithuania’s government procurement used green criteria; we supported heroic reformers building a culture of integrity and economic inclusion in places like the Dominican Republic, and much more.

We doubled down on our big bet to support Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. What started as a more aspirational coalition, turned into active implementation of a radical Digital Reconstruction Ecosystem for Accountable Management (DREAM) accompanied by major institutional and policy reforms. DREAM is rapidly becoming the default vehicle for coordinating the recovery and resilience of the country in the face of Russia’s appalling aggression, with more than 1,600 projects worth over $1 billion under its management in its first year and scaling rapidly.

We work in challenging times and not everything goes smoothly. The UN Convention Against Corruption’s landmark resolution on procurement wasn’t agreed upon until the wee hours of the morning after the scheduled conclusion of the conference. The French government, who sponsored the resolution, held out for ambitious and progressive language supporting open contracting and won through in the end. That feels like the story of 2023: hard work and going the extra mile to get the best results.

2023 also marked the end of our second five-year strategy. In total, we estimate the reforms that we supported positively impacted 209 million lives and US$116 billion of public spending. We documented 14 different examples where open contracting resulted in major changes in competition, efficiency, value for money, integrity, innovation, and inclusion, as well as supporting fundamentally better pandemic procurement. Check out our brand new strategy to 2030 for how we will take those lessons to make public procurement deliver for people and the planet.

I invite you to read on as we take you on a tour of how we did that with all our amazing reformers and allies around the world in 2023…

Dr. Gavin Hayman, Executive Director, Open Contracting Partnership

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Net Promoter Score for OCP

open contracting data publishers, 57 since 2019

new progress stories, 29 since 2019

new global norms: IDB Transparency in Infrastructue Principles; UNCAC resolution on integrity in procurement; East Africa Procurement Forum Resolution. 11 new global norms since 2019

in direct support for our partners through grants & consultancies, $5m since 2019

local media mentions of open contracting, 1,427 since 2019

publishers improving the quality of their open contracting data, 20 since 2019

new impact stories, 14 since 2019

actors using OCDS data, 78 since 2019

times our resources were accessed, 532,659 since 2019

lives and US$116 billion of public spending positively impacted in five years

Highlight: open contracting stories

Empowering women businesses and municipal reform in Palmira, Colombia, resulting in local farmers winning food contracts with the city

Red light for corruption in the Dominican Republic, increasing competition by nearly 50% and debarring over 60 bad actors

Improving climate resilience in flood-prone Assam, India, using a sophisticated data model for better planning and resource allocation

Fast-tracking green procurement in Lithuania, leading to almost 100% green procurement uptake from just 5% in 2021

Overpricing and inefficient purchasing practices are now more easily identified in Finland thanks to the digital government procurement with Hansel

Opening up procurement boosts public oversight and prevents millions in wasteful spending in Kazakhstan

Ekiti State, Nigeria, is breaking barriers for women businesses through better procurement practices, seeing a 43% increase in registrations in the state’s procurement system

Open for small business: Paraguay is leveraging its high-quality, open contracting data to measure the participation of small businesses and understand their challenges

The power of citizen contract monitoring to revolutionize public procurement: 200 issues resolved at the local procuring entity level and more in Uganda

The Ukrainian DREAM: Making wartime reconstruction digital and accountable

Buying local, inclusive and green: How Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, is living its values through better procurement

Empowering women businesses and municipal reform in Palmira, Colombia, resulting in local farmers winning food contracts with the city

Red light for corruption in the Dominican Republic, increasing competition by nearly 50% and debarring over 60 bad actors

Improving climate resilience in flood-prone Assam, India, using a sophisticated data model for better planning and resource allocation

Fast-tracking green procurement in Lithuania, leading to almost 100% green procurement uptake from just 5% in 2021

Overpricing and inefficient purchasing practices are now more easily identified in Finland thanks to the digital government procurement with Hansel

Opening up procurement boosts public oversight and prevents millions in wasteful spending in Kazakhstan

Ekiti State, Nigeria, is breaking barriers for women businesses through better procurement practices, seeing a 43% increase in registrations in the state’s procurement system

Open for small business: Paraguay is leveraging its high-quality, open contracting data to measure the participation of small businesses and understand their challenges

The power of citizen contract monitoring to revolutionize public procurement: 200 issues resolved at the local procuring entity level and more in Uganda

The Ukrainian DREAM: Making wartime reconstruction digital and accountable

Buying local, inclusive and green: How Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, is living its values through better procurement

Africa

We focused on making public procurement more inclusive, by increasing opportunities for disadvantaged groups such as women-led businesses.

Asia

We deepened our footprint in the region, building on our impact, strengthening coalitions of change, and seeing key projects come to fruition.

EECA & Ukraine

We created a strong coalition of CSOs to demand transparent, accountable, and efficient public procurement.

Europe

We focused on using public procurement to implement sustainable policy objectives and provided guidance to strengthen the EU procurement data architecture.

Latin America

We partnered with governments, civil society, and businesses to fix procurement by fighting corruption, boosting inclusion, and delivering better public services.

USA

We demonstrated that better procurement can serve the environment and historically disadvantaged businesses through our work with partners under the Lift program.

CREDERE

Enabling access to credit for small businesses that have been awarded public contracts.

Red flags dashboard

Flagging corruption risks in real-time for better, more efficient, and accountable public procurement processes.

Vigía

Connecting entrepreneurs to government contracts and providing real-time high-quality feedback on irregularities to the government.

Financials

We strive to fully disclose the source, amount and purpose of our funding. Our financial reporting and planning data are included as part of our Annual Reports.

Our targets

We are delighted to have met or exceeded most of our targets for the year 2023.

Our supporters

As the Open Contracting Partnership we know that we can’t do this work alone. We would not have seen the cascade of global impacts that we are celebrating here without our amazing funders. Thank you for your financial support, your engagement, and for pushing us to work even smarter.

Meet the team

It is always a pleasure when we do our Annual Reports to look back and see how much we have grown individually and collectively over the years. Our team members are passionate, smart, and innovative professionals working with frontline reformers globally to deliver radically better outcomes from the trillions of dollars spent on procurement every year. Meet the small but powerful team doing such excellent work worldwide!

Download the 2023 Annual Report

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Annual Report 2023