Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) is a citizen sector organisation established in 2003. Driven by the desire to have a more transparent and accountable government as well as citizens empowered to actively participate in governance processes their programs and activities are formulated in a manner intended to drive institutional and behavioral change.

PPDC pioneered procurement and contract monitoring activities in Nigeria using the FOI Act as a tool to source relevant procurement data from public institutions and continues to do so. To minimize the challenges of citizen’s access to procurement data, Budeshi platform was created. It serves as a hub for citizens to access procurement data in digital and easy-to-use formats. It has grown to consist of over 10,000 datasets.

It successfully advocated for the adoption of the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) and currently lead the charge in demanding its full implementation in states. Through our consistent targeted approach, over 10 states have signed up to the partnership.

In a recent research through the support of MacArthur Foundation certain recommendations were made available to improve the open contracting systems and the Open Contracting Data Standards portal. In this edition of Techsoup connect We will be examining how CSOs, NGOs and citizens can plug into the open contracting system using technology(everyone is a stakeholder). We will also examine how the recommendations have been implemented to impact the targeted States and what we can learn from the process.