With support from the Strive Community Innovation Fund,
the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) will build on their ongoing work in Colombia to create a solution to unlock financing for small businesses awarded with public contracts.
The OCP will create an automated system that uses open data about the awarding of public contracts to generate alerts for banks, enabling credit pre-approvals for small businesses with public contracts. As a result, small businesses awarded a government contract will be able to access credit up to the value of the contract. The OCP will work with commercial banks, government agencies, and small business associations to scope and design the user requirements for the solution and will pilot it through its existing network of partners.
To ensure the innovation reaches beyond Colombia, the OCP will publish the software under an open-source license with accompanying guidance and documentation of lessons learned. It will be designed to be reusable by procurement authorities in any country. Specifically, the OCP plans to scope and secure funding to implement the solution in Paraguay, Chile, and South Africa.
About the Open Contracting Partnership
The Open Contracting Partnership is an organization currently supporting transformational public procurement reform in more than 60 countries around the world. They use the power of technology and open government to deliver better goods and services to citizens, deter corruption, and create a better business environment and greater market opportunities for small and medium enterprises. For example, with their support, Ukraine’s open contracting reforms have delivered over $6 billion in savings, reduced perceptions of corruption from 54% to 29%, and made the public contracting sector more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, with more than 80% of contracts now going to small and medium-sized companies.
The real-world impacts of these data-driven reforms have been more reliable access to medicines; better infrastructure and services in the education sector; and local economic growth and empowerment. This work has been endorsed by the G7, G20, and the UN General Assembly, among other international organizations and frameworks.