This opinion article was written by Tippi Creed-Waring and Charlotte Broyd, Senior Communications Manager at CoST - the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative (CoST).

When it comes to public infrastructure investment, open government and transparency are king.

The value of global infrastructure output is expected to reach $17.5 trillion per annum by 2030, but there is a gap in national budgets, particularly in low and middle income countries, to meet this. Exacerbating this is the fact that a further 10–30% could be lost to corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency if current trends continue.

Unless we shine a light on the infrastructure project cycle, it is the public who will especially suffer from worse schools, roads and livelihoods.

At CoST — the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative — our members span 14 countries over four continents. We work to shine a light on infrastructure using the four key features of the CoST approach: disclosure, assurance, multi-stakeholder working and social accountability.

These features provide a global standard through which we can enhance infrastructure transparency and accountability and have produced some truly innovative approaches.

Today we home in on two innovations, which are of relevance for all open-government advocates, providing useful lessons beyond the infrastructure sector.

Open data, open government

The first innovation relates to the development of online data disclosure platforms in CoST countries.

On these platforms data on key stages of the infrastructure project cycle — including data on important aspects such as who the procuring entity of the project is, cost and variations to the contract price — is disclosed in line with the CoST Infrastructure Data Standard. And in due course it will be disclosed in line with our recently launched Open Contracting for Infrastructure Standard.

The platforms are a vital tool for centralising data and allow it to be accessed by citizens in real time. Importantly, they have been a driving force accelerating the amount of data disclosed across our member countries over recent years. To take 2018 for example, as more CoST countries launched their platforms, data was disclosed on over 11,000 infrastructure projects worldwide, almost double the amount we saw our members disclose in 2017.

Our members have also applied an innovative approach to lesson sharing and inputting to one another’s platforms. This has led to the development of effective portals in the most challenging of contexts — from Afghanistan to Ethiopia to Ukraine. One of the most innovative platforms has been SISOCS and the later-born SISOCS-APP in Honduras. The SISOCS-APP provides easy, searchable access to data on thousands of infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership (PPP) projects which has led to significant impact at both a sectoral and project level in the country.

The impact of open government

One such “impact story” which stems from SISOCS concerns the overhaul of the Honduras Road Fund. Issues on the Road Fund initially came to light through the CoST assurance process, which looks at data disclosure on a sample of projects and highlights issues of concern. The CoST Honduras assurance process had used SISOCS to identify the missing gaps in data disclosure and to show areas in which the Road Fund was consistently underperforming.

Deploying traditional means of engagement has proved massively successful in breaking down barriers between citizens and local government, tapping into the knowledge pool that exists at a local level, and delivering better results in the process

CoST Honduras then disseminated these issues in the public domain, and in mid-2017 the President of Honduras issued an executive decree ordering the dissolution of the Road Fund and for the creation of a new, transparent entity in its place. SISOCS has also been used by an intervention committee investigating the Road Fund to look at what went wrong and to establish what the new body should look like.

To help uncover similar stories elsewhere, we are working to make the platform code for SISOCS-APP open source so it’s available not only to CoST members, but anyone working to advance infrastructure transparency worldwide. Both CoST Uganda and CoST Panama have already adopted this technology, and developed new platforms based on the system.

Saving lives with citizen engagement

The second innovation we want to highlight is an approach taken within our social accountability feature — a feature which recognises the role of civil society, the media and public in ensuring decision-makers react to assurance process issues.

As we highlighted during our OGP Summit session this year with Hivos, our members’ social accountability tools have matured over the years to ensure greater citizen inclusion in the infrastructure decision-making process. One activity which exemplifies this has been the use of traditional community engagement events in Uganda known as “barazas”, where open dialogue ensues and citizens are able to freely express issues affecting their day-to-day lives to local policy-makers. Deploying these traditional means of engagement has proved massively successful in breaking down barriers between citizens and local government, tapping into the knowledge pool that exists at a local level, and delivering better results in the process.

This has led to direct, life-saving impact resulting from opening a line of communication

Of the many positive outcomes that have been sparked from barazas, the impact we’ve seen on the Namasuba Ndejje Kitiko Road stands out. This is a major road connecting the sub-county, Makindye-Sagabago to Uganda’s capital, Kampala and to the "Entebbe Highway" - a major highway running through Central Uganda. A repair project has been underway on the road since December 2015, which aims to relieve traffic on Entebbe Highway and improve access and transport routes for the local community.

Critical concerns about this road in Wakiso District, Uganda were highlighted in Uganda’s first assurance report in 2017 and over time more issues have come to light. Some of the road repairs had been abandoned before completion, and shops and homes were blocked by wide trenches which had been dug as drainage systems alongside it. Despite being narrow, vehicles drove down the newly tarmacked surface at speed which led to five deaths in just one year.

CoST Uganda recognised the value of holding a baraza to highlight these issues and in December 2017 the first event was convened. Here, residents spoke openly with local government, stressing just how the issues were affecting them. After this Wakiso District Council erected speed humps and constructed a drainage channel for water to flow through.

Lessons learned

Since these improvements, there have been no fatalities and the road is passable even in the rainy season, which is rare for the region. This has led to direct, life-saving impact resulting from opening a line of communication. CoST Uganda has begun to share lessons from this approach and just last month CoST Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana held its first baraza.

The outcomes we’ve seen from these contrasting innovations — one a tool with a catalytic effect and the other an alternative approach taken in our application — provide us with inspiration to continue thinking outside the box.

We also know that joining up approaches and sharing these lessons is pivotal to spearheading impact. Thus, we will not only continue learning and sharing across CoST members but with our external partners too, so that collectively better results can be delivered across the open government community.— Tippi Creed-Waring and Charlotte Broyd

(Picture credit: Unsplash)