Two weeks ago something curious happened in Lusaka, Zambia. The Zambian President, Mr Sata, made a surprise visit to a roads construction site to check on progress. Roads are a big priority and represent a considerable percentage of public expenditures. The Zambia Link 8000 project will connect most parts of the country to major roads.  A total of 8,201 kilometers will be implemented over a period of five years at an estimated cost of K28.4 trillion. While it is debatable whether the…

Several of our partners in Africa and Asia are interested in roads monitoring.

We are looking for examples and tools that have been used for monitoring of roads. We are interested in community monitoring, but also monitoring of larger scale contracts.

We would love to learn more about how CSOs have monitored either the award process or post-contract implementation.

It would be wonderful if the ProAct community could share their experiences.

We will make sure to…

A common Mongolian proverb says “Never take the first step”, encouraging caution and following the lead of others. Yet, in many ways Mongolia is taking a courageous leap with regard to procurement.

On October 1, 2012, a new procurement law becomes effective in Mongolia. The new law places Mongolia at the forefront of open contracting (i.e., procurement transparency and monitoring). It formally requires civil society to observe bid evaluations and to monitor the implementation…

Promoting Open Contracting is not an easy job! The recent blogs from Seember and Gilbert show that promoting contract transparency and monitoring is a long term effort. They, their organizations and partners have been advocating for enhanced access to information for many years. They are seeing some results but fighting for access to information and contract disclosure definitely requires endurance and patience.

Some Open Contracting practitioners go through great personal danger and…