The Open Contracting Partnership is committed to developing and encouraging uptake of technical standards for disclosure of public contracts and to building capacities for collecting, publishing, storing, accessing and sharing contract data.
The OCP is working towards making contracting information more useful and accessible. The creation of a usable and flexible Open Contracting Data standard will ensure that, as the campaign for Open Contracting gathers pace, partners across the world can gain access to joined up data, supported by an ecosystem of tools and services, rather than facing many silos of disjointed contracting data. An Open Contracting data standard will enable users to better ‘follow the money’ - bringing together many cuts of data including aid, extractives, land, construction, and spending.
This project aims to deliver a prototype Open Contracting Data Standard with sector-specific extensions (land and extractives) that build upon existing standards work and draws lessons from those experiences. The development of an Open Contracting standard will involve many aspects including:
- technical design and governance;
- demand and supply scoping;
- advocacy for standard adoption and implementation;
- increased public awareness through engagement activities;
- facilitation of early prototypes of data use; and
- capacity support for both publishers and users of data.
From early 2014 this repository will host documentation on the standard development process and an issue tracker for engaging with the process.