New Data Tools for investigative Journalists Reporting on public spending is key to accountability, but access and analysis of data is not always easy. This is why OpenBudgets.eu, Your Data Stories and DIGIWHIST, three H2020 projects, have focused on tracing public spending, data analysis and storytelling, in the name of accountability. Together the three projects […]
1. GOVERNMENTS SHOULD SET UP A COMPREHENSIVE CENTRAL PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PORTAL Currently, 23 of 34 DIGIWHIST countries already have a single national public procurement portal publishing all regulated tenders and contracts, albeit information content, usability, and reliability varies greatly. Providing comprehensive public procurement information free of charge in an easy-to-use format to all interested parties […]
BACKGROUND Approximately 15% of the EU’s Gross Domestic Product is spent every year on procuring goods and services, and some estimates indicate that corruption increases the cost of government contracts by 20 – 25%. It is even more worrying that corruption in public procurement compromises widely supported public goals, such as building safe highways, high quality school buildings, or […]
When talking anti-corruption, the most common buzzwords flung around by civil society activists, researchers and development professionals alike are transparency and accountability. Transparency is seen as so key to the fight against corruption that its arguably most important advocate took it as part of its name: Transparency International. It should thus not come as a […]
Billions of euros are spent on procuring for public goods. Our research shows that some of the procurement could be done more efficient and hence cheaper. Here, having information on the whole public procurement cycle is essential to evaluate the process and monitor it properly. Without information on contract implementation such as the final price […]
In the past decades, efforts to fight corruption have increased across the globe. At a closer look not much evidence can be found to prove these strategies to be successful. We are still facing the same questions: Why is it so difficult to overcome corruption and what measures need to be taken to majorly improve […]
What does whistleblowing look like in the digital age? What are its benefits and pitfalls? On 17 November 2015 the Hertie School of Governance and the Council of Europe hosted a discussion on these questions. The event was a satellite event to the World Forum for Democracy, taking place at the Council of Europe 18 […]
In the UK where ‘First-Past-the-Post’ electoral rules are the norm in local elections, with the exception of Scotland and Northern Ireland, lack of local electoral accountability poses a high risk to government integrity as voters may not be able to elect an alternative to the corrupt incumbent. The persistence of uncontested seats and one-party dominated […]
DIGIWHIST members were also present at the ANTICORRP conference “Understanding Governance Virtuous Circles: Who Succeeds and Why” (July 8-12, 2015, organized by the Hertie School of Governance (HSoG) and the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building, ERCAS), which got off to an intriguing start here at the European Academy Berlin. The aim of the […]
DIGIWHIST’s Consortium Members came together for the first time to discuss the details of the EU HORIZON 2020 project which will last the following three years. Some of the hot topics were how the data collection and cleaning procedure will take place, what good work had been done before by consortium members in the field […]
