2022 Open Contracting Champion: Guillermina Greco

For your fellow open contracting champions out there—what is the #1 piece of advice you would share with a reformer working to increase accountability, transparency, or participation in government?

It is crucial to be in touch with affected communities whenever possible. It is essential to work with these communities and give them a voice to participate in a meaningful way, so that our work in open contracting, anti-corruption, accountability, and transparency has an actual impact on the communities we aim to empower.

What has been the most unexpected challenge you’ve faced in this work?

Lack of coordination between different government agencies. ACIJ has had to work very closely with government representatives in order to build relationships between departments, and to help them share their data and information with each other.

Transparency and accountability are just the means to an end. In your work, what are the most important end goals?

I work in the “Rights to the City” program, so in particular I work with dense, urban settlements and their reurbanization processes. Our public procurement reforms had the aim to take a closer look at the public works, public resources, and information that was available to residents of these informal neighborhoods. We want to hold the government accountable for these process in order to strengthen community participation and improve outcomes for residents.

If public procurement was a sport, which one do you think it would be and why?

A team sport, since in procurement it is necessary to have good teamwork for it to succeed.

Find Guillermina on Linkedin.