Scrutinizing Public Contracting: How people-led initiatives to track government contracts can shed light on and improve public spending

Public contracting can be a tool for economic and social development, as well as tackling inequality, poverty and other global issues. But this trillion-dollar market is often poorly managed and highly vulnerable to corruption. Exposing these dynamics and the systems that enable them is vital to building a better future.

The webinar series “Scrutinizing public contracting” will bring together procurement monitors and investigators from a variety of disciplines to exchange ideas on what inspires civic actors to dig into public contracting, what works and what doesn’t, and how findings can lead to actionable change. 

Kick-off session: 10 August 2022, 16:00-17:30 CEST

During the kickoff session community leaders, researchers and educators will discuss different approaches to uncover corruption and wasteful spending, and how they are working to get systemic problems fixed.

The session will cover:

• basic concepts and terms in the area of public contracting,
• how to identify potential cases of corruption in public contracting,
• investigative tools and strategies,
• cases and best practices.

Join us to start a conversation that we hope will become a regular channel for sharing new ideas, new collaborations and new citizen-focused resources with practical advice and inspiration to investigate the world’s biggest public marketplace.

Why it matters

Governments spend huge sums on buying goods, services and works. They hire businesses to build hospitals, supply water to our homes, and run public transport. Known as public contracting, the documents and data created throughout this process are a treasure trove of information on how governments spend public funds in ways that affect society and our well-being. 

Thanks to advances in technology and civic campaigning, there is now more information about these deals in the public domain than ever before. A growing number of citizen and civil society-led procurement monitoring ventures around the globe are using this information to answer meaningful questions, such as:

• how people benefit or get harmed by decisions made in the procurement process,
• whether government programs are running as they’re supposed to, and
• what governments spend money on.

Registration

• Sign up to this free webinar here: https://events.exposingtheinvisible.org/eti/webinar-public-contracting/
• The webinar takes place on 10 August at 16:00 – 17:30 CEST (Central European Summer Time.)
• A link to join the event will be provided by email one day before the webinar to participants who sign up.
• The event will be recorded.
• Contact for questions: eti@tacticaltech.org (GPG Key / fingerprint: BD30 C622 D030 FCF1 38EC C26D DD04 627E 1411 0C02).

About the Organizers

The Open Contracting Partnership is an independent non-profit public charity collaboration across governments, businesses, civil society, and technologists to open up and transform government contracting worldwide. Bringing open data and open government together, Open Contracting Partnership aims to ensure public money is spent openly, fairly and effectively on public contracts, the single biggest item of spending by most governments and the number one corruption risk.

Tactical Tech is an international non-profit organisation that engages with citizens and civil-society organisations to explore and mitigate the impacts of technology on society. Exposing the Invisible is a Tactical Tech project that develops resources, training and collaborations promoting investigation as one of the most important forms of public engagement.

SEEK Initiative is an international alliance of nonprofit organizations who have decades of experience in supporting impact-focused investigations by civil society.