We are proud that five CoST members, from three continents, applied for the CoST Awards 2024: Costa Rica, Jalisco (Mexico), Sekondi Takoradi (Ghana), Thailand, and West Lombok (Indonesia).
The awards have two categories, with one of the winners awarded an Outstanding Award named in memory of Alfredo Cantero (1973-2019), a much-respected former CoST Board member.
The ceremony will be held in London on 27th February 2025. In this ceremony, CoST International will also recognize, for the first time, the work of those members who have stood out in publishing information under the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard (OC4IDS).
The categories
For the Transparency category, we will recognize the work of members that have increased the scope, scale, robustness or accuracy of data proactively or reactively published in relation to the planning and provision of infrastructure and/or the institutionalization of related processes or building and implementing successfully a transparency agenda after the publication of the Infrastructure Transparency Index.
And for the Participation Category, we will value establishing a constructive dialogue between government, civil society, and the private sector to improve infrastructure sector governance within national or local jurisdiction.
The CoST Awards were introduced in 2022 by the CoST International Secretariat to ensure there are mechanisms to celebrate success from CoST members. Since 2022, the awards also include one for outstanding achievement, named in memory of Alfredo Cantero (1973-2019), a much-respected former CoST Board member.
The Jury
CoST has appointed a highly qualified and credible panel of judges to evaluate the submissions made up of recognized leaders across transparency in infrastructure governance.
This year’s panel of judges is as follows: Eyasu Yimer who chaired CoST Ethiopia for more than a decade and possesses 23 years of experience in transparency working, including UN Agencies (UNDP, UNICEF, UNWFP) and collaborating for CSO (TI-Ethiopia) as Executive Director. Hamish Goldie-Scot, a CoST Technical Advisor who supports CoST’s current and future activities in Africa and Asia and is a founding member of the UK Anti-Corruption Forum. Ezequiel Miranda, who has 15 years of experience working with the World Bank in several areas. He is a senior operations officer for the Fragility, Conflict & Violence (FCV) Group of the World Bank in Washington DC.
About Alfredo Cantero
Alfredo Cantero served on CoST’s Board, representing the public sector globally. He served as Minister of Transparency for the Honduran government between 2018 and 2019 and was a government representative for five years in the CoST Honduras Multi-Stakeholder Group.
As a Minister, he played a leading role in establishing CoST Honduras in 2014, where he promoted tools and platforms to encourage accountability in government procurement and contracting. He also promoted open data platforms such as the Information and Monitoring System for Works and Supervision Contracts (SISOCS) and SISOCS PPP, a platform for the disclosure of information on projects executed under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mechanism.
“We want to commemorate Alfredo’s life by honoring the work of CoST members each year,” said Evelyn Hernández, CoST Head of Members and Affiliates.
2022 and 2023 outstanding award winners
The Alfredo Cantero Outstanding Award-winner of the 2023 edition was CoST Panama, which also won the Data Disclosure Category. This member made significant strides in enhancing transparency by publishing data on over 3,800 projects in nearly half a year. These improvements followed their first Infrastructure Transparency Index results, which highlighted low levels of transparency. CoST Thailand received an honorable mention in the Data Disclosure Category this year.
The 2022 Alfredo Cantero Award was granted to CoST Uganda in recognition of its efforts to promote transparency, citizen participation, and accountability, including being the CoST member with the most impact stories published. CoST Thailand received an honorable mention.