Twelve projects from Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Georgia, Guatemala, Kenya, Lithuania, Nepal, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, Uruguay will receive a grant to develop research and actionable recommendations to support more effective procurement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The selected projects that will receive a $3,000 action research grant are:

• Felix Penna, Argentina
• Anticorruption Institute, Colombia
• Datalat, Ecuador
• Natalia Baratashvili, Georgia
• Daniel de Leon, Guatemala
• Open Governance Institute, Kenya
• TI Lithuania
• FollowTaxes, Nigeria
• Young Innovations, Nepal
• IDEA and Centro de Desarrollo Sostenible, Paraguay
• John Barrajas, Philippines
• Civico, Uruguay

Over the next three months, these projects will analyze data related to emergency procurement and other relevant datasets to develop recommendations for improving efficiency, effectiveness, fairness, integrity, or equity.

“We are excited to be supporting a diverse group of organizations and individuals from around the globe to use research to advocate for improved emergency procurement,” says Lindsey Marchessault, Director of Data and Engagement. “We received nearly 80 proposals and we will be offering technical assistance to several additional projects that we were not able to fund in this round of action research grants.”

The response to the new coronavirus requires vital supplies and services to be procured rapidly and efficiently. But emergency procedures and negotiated arrangements allow governments to spend large sums of money without the checks and balances that are normally needed for such deals. This makes procurement monitoring and social accountability critical for ensuring governments manage emergency procurement effectively to contain COVID-19.

“With this action research we aim to support independent research and reporting on how governments are procuring life-saving medical supplies during times of crisis,” says Daniel Dietrich, Program Manager at Hivos. “The evidence generated can be used for public scrutiny and aid governments to improve their procurement results.”

The Action Research Grants are provided by Hivos Open Up Contracting program and Open Contracting Partnership’s projects with the BHP Foundation and DFID.

About the Open Contracting Partnership

The 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 30 countries around the world. 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.

About Hivos

Hivos is an international organization that seeks new solutions to persistent global issues. With smart projects in the right places, we oppose discrimination, inequality, abuse of power and the unsustainable use of our planet’s resources. Counterbalance alone, however, is not enough. Our primary focus is achieving structural change. In our Open Up Contracting program, we work with civil society, media, activists, businesses and civic watchdog organizations to ensure citizens have equal and inclusive access to public goods and services and can meaningfully engage in public resource allocation and policy decisions.