The National Political Forum for Public Governance Monitoring was held in Yaoundé at the Merina Hotel on November 17, 2022. It is part of the implementation of the action “Strengthening Budget Governance for the Sustainable Provision of Basic Services While Ensuring Environmental Preservation,” led by the ADIN consortium, AfroLeadership, CRADEC, DMJ, and Transparency International Cameroon, funded by the European Union Delegation to Cameroon. The objective of the forum was to engage in dialogue on the facts, trends, and impacts of the various project themes on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
For this forum, AfroLeadership educated nearly 70 participants (from the National Assembly, public administration, decentralized local authorities, civil society, media, etc.) on the theme “Understanding Open Data as a Catalyst for Transparency in Public Contracts.” This presentation was made by Mr. Victor Bertrand WAMBA, Director of Civic Technologies, moderated by Mr. Théodore Aimé MOUCHINGAM, Head of Digital Rights. This four-part presentation covered the following topics: (i) Introduction to Open Data, (ii) Introduction to the Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS) promoted by the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), (iii) Overview of platforms developed by the Ministry of Public Contracts, the Public Procurement Regulatory Agency, including their limitations, and (iv) Presentation of the public procurement platform developed by AfroLeadership. Finally, AfroLeadership also presented its contributions in this area.
During the discussions, clarifications were provided on various concerns raised by participants regarding the challenges in accessing public data, the mechanisms for feeding data into the platform, and the approach to collaborating with the data-producing administrations. It was emphasized that advocacy for the access to information law should continue to overcome the barriers to open data in Cameroon.