Prior to CoST: Public infrastructure in context

According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, in 2018 Ecuador achieved a score of 34 and was ranked 114 out of 180 countries, rising to 38 and a ranking of 93 in 2019. Despite concerns over the roll-back of some civil society freedoms, Ecuador’s climb in the rankings is due to significant improvements to perceptions of corruption since 2016, which led to a six-point increase over that period,

According to the United Nations’ Electronic Governance Development Index, Ecuador scored 0.7 in 2020, placing it 24th globally. The government’s efforts to build a cooperation mechanism between the private sector and civil society has been identified as a key strength as the country works to increase transparency and efficiency in public procurement.

CoST Ecuador: How it all began

In 2019, Ecuador’s National Public Procurement Service (Sercop) submitted a membership application letter to the CoST board, as part of the CoST Competitive Process. The membership application was reinforced by letters of support from civil society organisations and the private sector, and Ecuador’s application was formally accepted in December 2019. The CoST Ecuador Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) was formally established in July 2020,

In the short term, CoST Ecuador plans to train public officials on centralising infrastructure data through the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard (OC4IDS). There is already strong support from civil society and the private sector in Ecuador, and the CoST programme will seek to identify non-governmental actors to help catalyse impact and spark public engagement.

Data disclosure

In Ecuador, infrastructure data is disclosed through the Official State Procurement System (SOCE) which is administered by Sercop. All procuring entities in Ecuador are obliged to publish contracts through SOCE, and Sercop will work to strengthen transparency through CoST principles. For instance, although contract information is published on the platform, it is not currently possible to export the data in open format or in bulk.

In addition to SOCE, one of Ecuador’s Open Government Partnership (OGP) commitments from its 2019-2021 Action Plan is to create a new, open data platform for public procurement, which promotes access to information for citizens and stakeholders. Sercop will implement the OC4IDS as part of the development of this platform.

Assurance

As part of the membership application submitted by Sercop, six infrastructure projects were pre-selected for CoST Ecuador’s first assurance process. These will be subject to validation by the newly formed MSG before the process commences.

Get in touch

CoST Ecuador Programme Manager
Santiago Mena
ecuador@infrastructuretransparency.org