Europe and Central Asia

Covid-19 has created conditions in which corruption in health procurement can flourish. Open contracting would bring this notoriously opaque process into the light.

TI HI’s blog (originally published on Devex) outlines the links between Covid-19 and procurement corruption and highlights the importance of implementing open contracting to counteract these corruption risks.

Open Contracting for Health (OC4H) is a DFID-funded project which seeks to improve the transparency and accountability of public procurement in the health sector. By ensuring that the procurement of things like medical supplies and the building of health centres is conducted openly and transparently, it greatly reduces the chance of a situation like that in Aromo repeating.

In Lira County, Uganda, Transparency International Uganda has worked with and trained individuals representing three key stakeholder groups:

1. Civil society organisations (CSOs) are trained to conduct monitoring of procurement and construction processes.
2. The private sector to form a Private Sector Association which provide a collective voice for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) on issues of procurement corruption and bidding processes.
3. Relationships are built with government officials to ensure they are completing contracting processes.

TI-HI’s report “Making the Case for Open Contracting in Healthcare Procurement”  examines the utility of open contracting in healthcare procurement. The process relies on governments to disclose procurement information to businesses and civil society improves stakeholders’ understanding of procurement processes increasing the integrity, fairness and efficiency of public contracting.

In several countries, including Honduras, Ukraine and Nigeria, corruption was significantly reduced throughout the healthcare procurement process following the implementation of open contracting, according to the report.