OSIWA and The World Bank Join Forces to Fight Corruption in West Africa at Contract Monitoring Meeting
June 22, 2012 - Dakar, Senegal
OSIWA and The World Bank Join Forces to Fight Corruption in West Africa at Contract Monitoring Meeting
Three-day conference gathers civil society members from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Guinea, Niger, Senegal and Togo
June 22, Dakar, Senegal
The Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and The World Bank (WB) recently concluded a three-day conference in Dakar, Senegal under the theme “Can Contract Monitoring Improve Development Outcomes?” aimed at strengthening transparency and accountability in public procurement (in Francophone countries)[1] through collaboration between government, civil society and the private sector.
According to The World Bank, public procurement represents about 50% to 70% of total government spending in many developing countries. It is also a major source of revenue to the private sector. On these bases, efficient public procurement (covering process and service delivery) can have major impact in the fight against corruption and welfare improvement. It can boost the role of the private sector as drivers of growth and economic development.
“A new shift of focus, from ‘internal processes’ in public procurement, towards an approach that is based on risk, performance and outcomes provides important opportunities for more active citizens’ voice in public procurement”, says Edward Olowo-Okere, The World Bank Director of Core Operational Services for the Africa Region.
Dayo Olaide, Economic Governance Officer at OSIWA, says making this shift requires vigilance and active citizens’ engagement to achieve effective and efficient procurement and improvement in service delivery.
“We are drawing from lessons-learned through multi-stakeholder interventions, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which have proved (after ten years in operation) that real change and accountability happens when an engaged citizenry, working closely with other key actors, holds its leaders to account,” explains Olaide. “As a result, collaboration among civil society, government, regulatory authorities, media, academia, youth and women groups (throughout procurement cycle- value chain) is at the core of this new and evolving OSIWA-WB partnership.”
At the end of the three-day conference in Dakar, participants produced ‘Draft Country Action Plans’, which were intensely debated in the plenary session. In the next phase, each country plan will be subject of elaborate deliberation by a wider public who will then own and validate it. They will be considered for joint support by OSIWA-WB.
Significant progress in reforming public procurement and promoting social accountability has already been made in West Africa through the efforts of OSIWA and The World Bank. In the last two decades, almost all of the countries have adopted public procurement laws and established regulatory authorities. In these countries, due process requires that public procurement follows international standards and returns gains in the form of savings in infrastructure costs, removal of ‘excess fat’ in project costs, ‘over invoicing’ and the promotion of value for money.
The new WB Global Partnership for Enhanced Social Accountability (GPESA), endorsed in April 2012, signals a major shift in The World Bank’s support to civil society through dedicated funds. It is an important complementary resource and can boost current OSIWA’s interventions to promote equitable and efficient management of public and natural resource endowment in West Africa. Coalitions from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Guinea, Niger, Senegal and Togo will benefit in this joint assistance.
Media contact: Sophie Ly Sow, Communications Officer, OSIWA; slysow@osiwa.org ; +221 33 869 1033/26
[1] There is an ongoing project for 4 Anglophone West African countries – Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia.