Fulfilling the promise of e-procurement reform

Lessons from 5 African countries

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Public procurement — especially manual, paper-based public procurement — has a reputation of inefficiency, corruption, and waste. It is where money, power and discretion come together in government, making it government’s number one corruption risk. Digitisation of the whole procurement process, often through an overarching electronic government procurement (e-GP) system that can manage the many transactions involved across the procurement process, holds out the promise of delivering a transformational change in the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of procurement. New research, shortly to be published by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, projects that the return on investment for a smaller economy could be of the order of 8-58 times if done comprehensively.