We have just launched Contratos Transparentes, a tool to detect possible corruption cases in public procurement. We will take this opportunity to talk to you about how red flags help fight corruption and introduce you to tools that may be valuable.

Red flags for prevention

The red flags are indicators that help to identify potential corruption risks in procurement processes. They can be defined as red flags, clues, or indications of possible irregularities throughout the process. They are established based on existing public information. Therefore, when countries have advances in transparency in their public procurement processes or use the Open Procurement Data Standard it is much easier to do this monitoring.

The fact that a contract has a red flag does not necessarily mean that there is corruption, but it does help to identify those processes that may require special attention from the institution itself and the public.

From open public data to social control

A few months ago the Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo and its Public Contracting Observatory, with the support of the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) and the Development Bank of Latin America, proposed us the challenge of creating a tool to detect possible cases of corruption in Ecuador: Transparent Contracts.

This country, like many others, is moving forward to create a more transparent and open public procurement system. Thus, through its Open Procurement Platform, Ecuador proactively publishes public processes and procurement data in real-time.

Contratos Transparentes, which has been echoed by some media, takes this data and, based on five categories and 26 indicators - red flags - provides independent analysis, identifies suspicious behavior that may occur in a public procurement process and makes it available to citizens.

🚩Explore the tool

5 resources to monitor public procurement

Contratos Transparentes is not the only tool used by Banderas Rojas. The use of these indicators is becoming more and more widespread. Here are 5 tools where you can discover their potential.

1. The Guide Red Flags for Integrity in Public Procurement explains how to use public data to identify potential corruption risks | OCP
2. All Contracts aggregates, analyzes and evaluates procurement data housed in Costa Rica’s public procurement system | Poder and Innovapp
3. The article Red flags in public procurement: what we can find with the data, focuses on the application of these indicators in public procurement in Spain | Government of Spain
4. The tool Red Flags allows to identify of potential corruption risks in the European Union’s electronic database of tenders | Integrity Watch
5. La letra menuda used Red Flags to analyze 6 million public contracts and explain how the procurement system works in Colombia | Datasketch

Bonus: Todos los contratos México analyzed the performance of public procurement in Mexico. It is currently inactive but has been a great reference for other countries such as Ecuador | Poder

What’s on the radar?

• 📲 Unknown Influence: Social Media, Democracy and Transparency (en) | Mozilla
• 🗳️ How political campaigns use your phone’s location to target you | The Markup
• ⚖️ Open justice is also advancing in the Americas | Open Government Partnership
• 🤖 The Corruption Risks of Artificial Intelligence | Transparency International
• 🏥 Better data sharing and transparency in healthcare can save lives | The Open Data Institute

Thank you for reading. See you in the next issue.