A 4-day Anti-Corruption Hackathon Workshop organised by Accountability Lab has opened in Benin

The Accountability Lab Nigeria is a part of the global network of labs that makes governance work for citizens by supporting active citizens, responsible leaders, and accountable institutions across the country and working with them to unleash positive social and economic change. We have built a network of young people through our programmes who understand the need for open governance and inclusion. AL Nigeria has a track record of creating engaging campaigns and leveraging existing partnerships to develop activities aimed at reaching those who are not normally included in governance conversations through unlikely networks.

This hackathon engagement is premised on Improving government procurement data including public access: Developing tech ideas for public procurement processes to improve paper-based systems, improper contracting procedures, unclear regulations, and poor efficiency in tracking public contracts.

And also catalyzing the use of procurement data for advocacy, monitoring, and feedback mechanisms: Implementing open contracting under the watchful eye of citizen and CSO engagement, presents Nigerian states with the opportunity to address loopholes within procurement processes, improve service delivery, and attain greater levels of transparency around spending, e.g. develop story sprints.

Welcoming participants to the workshop, the Country Director, Odeh Friday said the Accountability Lab makes governance work for people everywhere by supporting active citizens, responsible leaders and accountable institutions and working to build Accountability to support a world in which resources are used wisely, decisions benefits everyone fairly.

Odeh urged participants to be pay attention to lectures that is going to be delivered by their resource persons in order to make contributions from an informed point of view.

On his part, the Project Officer, Shiiwa Mnenga said the project: Anti Corruption Innovation Project in Public Procurement is a deliberate initiative of Accountability Lab Nigeria in partnership with the Open Contracting Partnership to bring about a improvement in public procurement of Edo, Plateau and Ekiti states.

He further stated that the essence is to ensure that there is greater transparency in the contracting business of government and to ensure that data generated through the process is made accessible to the public with a view to increase value for money, timely delivery of quality projects and services as well as building trust among citizens.

The Resource Person and Development Professional, Kachi Chukwu delivered lectures titled ” An Overview of Anti- Corruption Innovation Project in the Public Procurement Sector” and ” Identifying Red Flags In Procurement Processes”.

The workshop drew participants from the Media, Civil Society Organisations, Nigeria Bar Association, Techprenuers, Innovators and Public Sectors.