Open Contracting impact accelerator: share your ideas to reimagine public procurement, get support and funding

Washington, D.C., 13 March – Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) has launched a new call for applications for its Lift impact accelerator program. Lift is an 18-month-long program that helps teams of reformers deliver change through open contracting and better public procurement. Up to nine project teams will be selected to take part this year.

OCP will provide high-performing reform teams with support to redesign or improve public procurement to make it goal-driven, user-friendly and human-centered. Each project will receive up to US$35,000 in financial support and 200 hours of technical assistance on open contracting topics, including gathering and analyzing procurement data, developing reform processes, and implementing monitoring and evaluation systems.

OCP is looking for projects that use open contracting to:

• Fight corruption or strengthen democratic institutions
• Protect the environment or improve climate resilience 
• Promote economic and social inclusion

Kathrin Frauscher, Deputy Director at OCP said:

“Public contracts matter. Governments and cities spend billions of dollars a year through public procurement. This makes public procurement a critical tool to address the most urgent challenges of our time, from fighting corruption, to increasing economic and social inclusion, and protecting the environment and the planet.”

“We also know that transforming public procurement is hard on your own. That’s why we’re proud to provide this comprehensive support program,” Frauscher added. 

Applications can be submitted at https://lift.open-contracting.org from 13 March to 5 May. The program is open to teams from all levels of government and civil society organizations worldwide.

Additional notes:

This is our third edition of the Lift program. In the past, OCP has supported teams around the world to use public contracting to tackle challenges such as government transparency and accountability, medicine affordability, and disaster relief management. 

Past Lift teams achieved the following outstanding results:

• In Ecuador, the Lift impact accelerator program provided a space for civil society and government reformers to collaborate. Two years later, competition has increased, the procurement agency, SERCOP, is publishing real-time open data, and civil society is monitoring red flags, resulting in better deals for citizens.
• In Moldova, thanks to Lift, patients from some of the most vulnerable groups in society worked with public health and procurement experts to slash the cost of drugs without compromising on quality. This freed up funds for other critical preventive and curative care measures. Thanks to this collaboration, the country saved 15.4% on medical procurement overall – including 19% savings on HIV medicines.
• In Assam, India, CivicDataLab built an intelligent data model to help decision-makers improve flood management procurement so that the most vulnerable people in Assam are better protected from the worst effects of natural disasters.
• Mexico City, Mexico has revamped its bike share service, expanding the network while halving the operating costs. 
• The U.S. city of Des Moines, Iowa is increasing sustainable purchasing and social equity by reimagining their procurement process, and increasing vendor diversity.

Other projects include Ekiti State, Nigeria and the cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina; El Paso, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Lille, France.

Ángeles Ferreyra, Office of Purchasing and Contracts, Ministry of Finance, City of Buenos Aires said:

“Lift was instrumental in helping us better articulate and scope our project, and establish feasible objectives. Because of the Lift process, we ended up with a plan we could execute, not just an idea.”

Media contact

Georg Neumann, gneumann@open-contracting.org, +1-202-7144460

About

Open Contracting Partnership is a silo-busting collaboration across governments, businesses, civil society, and technologists to open up and transform government contracting worldwide. We bring open data and open government together to make public contracting fair and effective. Spun out of the World Bank in 2015, we are now an independent not-for-profit working in over 50 countries. We help make reforms stick and innovations jump scale, and foster a culture of openness about the policies, teams, tools, data, and results needed to deliver impact.