Open contracting in practice: Use, challenges, impact

Open contracting has become one of the key open data-driven initiatives in recent years. Better, smarter, and fairer government contracting will have a significant impact on citizens’ lives everywhere. Open contracting should go far beyond better open data to drive systemic reforms: giving citizens the nutritious school meals, the world-class medical equipment, and better goods and services that they deserve.

Two years ago at the IODC in Madrid, we showcased the exciting early results that came from opening up inefficient, opaque and corrupt systems of government business.

For the IODC in Buenos Aires, we’ve planned an action-packed week of sessions and events to discuss how to use open contracting data to create lasting impact and challenge vested interests. Specifically:

Open Cities Summit

Monday, 24 September

Bogota, Mexico City, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Glendale and many other cities are exploring or already using open contracting to get more value from their cities’ procurement processes through open contracting. Join us at a hands-on open contracting session during the Open Cities Summit on Monday. This event will be in English.

Open contracting in practice: Use, challenges, impact

Official IODC pre-event on Tuesday, 25 September

Our pre-event, organized together with our partners ILDA and Hivos will be a forum to hear experiences and learn from peers. A “hard talk”-style conversation about challenges and opportunities will lead to data use clinics. In the clinics, we will connect peers to explore topics like the value of the Open Contracting Data Standard, using contracting data to follow the money, sparking innovation and competition, working with poor-quality data, building effective feedback loops for impact, and many other hot topics. We’ll have a marketplace where people can ask for help and share tools and solutions they developed.

Make sure to register so that we can plan a productive day! This event will be in English.

Happy Hour

Last but not least, join us for our open government & contracting happy hour with our friends from the Open Government Partnership on Tuesday, 26 September. Reserve your spot.

Open Contracting Abrelab

Wednesday, 26 September

At Abrelatam, we’ll host an open contracting lab together with ILDA and HIVOS focussing on co-designing and planning concrete projects and activities that could advance open contracting in Latin America. This event will be in Spanish.

International Open Data Conference

At the conference itself, we’ll be discussing government infrastructure, data standards, open data challenges, and exploring the impact of open contracting on people’s lives – and how to ensure fixes and open data can turn into sustainable solutions. See the full conference program and join us for our Spotlight session on Friday. This event will run in English and Spanish.