In Kenya, Open Contracting Improves Efficiency & Curbs Corruption

With citizens’ lives on the line and government spending at record highs, ensuring accountability to citizens is imperative to maintaining trust and effectively managing KEMSA’s procurement in response to COVID-19. Open procurement data can help in improving the efficiency of emergency procurement and support civil society groups to detect corruption and monitor the effectiveness of service delivery.

“This level of transparency and through the use of technology will go a very long way in ensuring that we have the confidence of our people that those placed in institutions are able to manage the resources of the Kenyan taxpayer plus our development partners in an open and transparent manner” – President Uhuru Kenyatta

Much can be learned from Makueni County in Kenya, a county that publishes and uses open, accessible, and timely information on government contracting to engage citizens and businesses. The Makueni Open Contracting Portal is an interactive site built by Development Gateway (DG) that provides detailed information on each step of the tender, award, and contract implementation process at the county level. These steps are now recorded within the interactive Makueni Open Contracting Portal – making information available for citizens at each step of the process. The county plans to go a step further to publish all implementation data such as community monitoring reports, also known as PMC reports and supplier payment vouchers.

The goal of the portal is to improve the efficiency of public procurement management and support the delivery of higher-quality goods, works, and services for residents of Makueni County through enhanced citizen feedback.

What We Learned from Makueni County

Lesson 1: Public Data Improves Efficiency

The primary role of the Ministry of Health and KEMSA in Kenya during an emergency situation is to provide citizens timely, affordable, and efficient supplies and services. Digitizing and publishing procurement data will provide the Ministry insights on whether funding and services are reaching intended beneficiaries. 

Publishing procurement data will also encourage better monitoring from relevant state and non-state actors. The Ministry of Health and KEMSA will have the opportunity to aggregate non-state actors’ feedback and state actor insights. This feedback will enable them to make data-driven decisions that will improve service delivery to citizens, promote efficient allocation of resources and ultimately saving costs.

DG has developed interactive M&E dashboards to support analysis currently used by Makueni County. The series of charts and visualizations provide helpful data insights – such as top suppliers that received contracts and the percentage of awards that go toward the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities (AGPO), which requires tenders to be awarded to women, youth, and people with disabilities.

Since the start of the use of the Makueni open contracting portal in 2019, improved resource utilization and efficiency in procurement has been identified by the County leadership. Governor Kivutha Kibwana cited that the County has saved Kes. 30,000,000 from the Roads department as a result of using the portal.

Lesson 2: Building Trust is Essential to Combating Corruption

The complexity of emergency responses such as COVID-19 requires cooperation between the private sector, national, and county government to ensure timely delivery of supplies. KEMSA publishing data will promote feedback and engagement of business and citizens further building trust and collaboration. Publishing procurement data also equips civil society and citizens with the information needed to help combat corruption. For example, reporting counterfeits, frauds, and scams – which has been a key corruption issue identified globally in COVID-19 response procurement, particularly PPEs.

DG has implemented its corruption risk dashboard in Makueni, which uses high powered analytics and global research to identify risk profiles for potential corruption in procurement. KEMSA can adopt the corruption risk dashboard as a red-flagging tool to assist in identifying procurement activities that merit in-depth auditing of corruption risk – including fraud, collusion, and process rigging – over time. These analytics will allow the organization to address cases of corruption before taxpayer money is lost.

Lastly, publishing Beneficial ownership data can enable governments to quickly perform minimal standards of due diligence on companies they are buying goods and services from. As well as reducing the immediate risk of corruption, beneficial ownership data provides a valuable trail for future audit.

Through DG’s Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program, we recently published a case study titled “Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria.” It dives deep into how the VIFAA program has impacted the fertilizer data and markets in Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria. In this blog, we explore the overall impact that the VIFAA program is making, review why the program is needed, and offer some key highlights from the case study.        

Fertilizer Data in Context: Why the VIFAA Program is Needed 

Significantly contributing to low agricultural productivity, African fertilizer consumption has historically lagged behind other regions. As of January 2023, Africa consumes only about 10% of the global average for fertilizer use. Limited access to affordable fertilizers, inadequate infrastructure, and challenges related to financing and knowledge dissemination are some of the factors that contribute to this disparity. However, a concerted effort by governments, non-governmental organizations, and international agencies is gradually changing this situation by promoting sustainable agricultural practices and increasing fertilizer use, which overall will improve agricultural productivity and increase food security.

These efforts to boost fertilizer usage often include providing subsidies, improving distribution channels, and raising awareness among farmers about the benefits of fertilizers. Despite these initiatives, the sector has long struggled with fragmented data, leaving decision-makers without a solid foundation for evidence-based approaches.  

Over the past few years, stakeholders have adopted a more strategic and data-driven approach, fostering a better understanding of farmer needs and key data sets such as imports, exports, and crop-specific formulations. This shift has also encouraged organic trust-building between private enterprises and the governments in which they operate.

Robust partnerships have been instrumental in this transformation. The International Fertilizer Development Center’s Data Initiative, AfricaFertilizer, Development Gateway: An IREX Venture, and Wallace & Associates, supported by funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have collaborated to enhance the availability of validated fertilizer data across eight African countries through a shared initiative: the VIFAA program. The VIFAA program simplifies existing, validated metadata into more accessible visual formats. VIFAA provides policymakers and the private sector tools to improve decision-making through interactive, country-specific dashboards and web-based solutions.

The VIFAA program has benefited the target countries and established foundational data for the African Union Commission’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme. Covering Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique, VIFAA has revolutionized the fertilizer data landscape. Policymakers can now instantly access fertilizer balance sheets, price movements, stock positions, and traded volumes. Private companies can stay agile in volatile markets, ensuring a consistent supply of fertilizers for farmers.

Highlights from the Case Study

Under the VIFAA program, three countries—Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria—have particularly stood out, registering significant impacts across the board. This case study, “Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Data-Driven Collaboration and Partnership: Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Nigeria,” delves into the transformative effects of the VIFAA program in these three nations, providing a comprehensive understanding of its impact and highlighting the pivotal role of data and strategic partnerships in driving agricultural development in Africa.

Some key positive outcomes, which are explored in more detail in the case study, include how:

1. Developing a country-specific dashboard for Ethiopia addressed some of the country’s concerns related to ensuring stakeholders have clear information on the global fertilizer market dynamics and that this information is trustworthy and trusted;
2. Establishing Fertilizer Technical Working Groups in Mozambique created a primary point of validation on any statistics and the impact this has; and
3. Creating the Nigeria Fertilizer Dashboard facilitated private sector actors to crowdfund in order to support the creation of additional nuanced datasets that VIFAA has been able to provide during the past two years.

Read the case study to discover even more about VIFAA’s successes in these countries and to learn more about how initiatives like VIFAA pave the way for a more productive and sustainable agricultural future on the continent.