Lift
up your
reform
team
community
procurement
Are you a government or social leader trying to improve public integrity, sustainability or equity? Lift is an impact accelerator program designed to help you and your team deliver change through open contracting.
How will you use
open contracting to…
Fight corruption or strengthen democratic institutions?
Protect the environment or improve climate resilience?
Promote economic and social inclusion?
About Lift
As governments and social leaders around the world grapple to address the converging crises of inequality, climate change, and a decline in public trust, every single one of them has a powerful and untapped tool at their disposal: public procurement.
Open contracting is a tested approach to reimagine public procurement to deliver systemic change. Lift is our program to help teams of bold reformers to redesign processes, policies, and data to make them goal-driven, user-friendly and human-centered. Your challenge could be…
Corruption, low trust in government, or a lack of representation.
You might want to use open contracting to improve your country’s public spending and integrity through implementing better red flagging approaches, increasing competition and reducing sole sourcing. Or you might want to improve monitoring and advocacy by empowering citizens, businesses, journalists and others to track and report procurement failures and making government agencies accountable to responding to them.
Government spending and investments that don’t meet climate goals and needs.
You might want to use open contracting to expand access to affordable and green public transit, purchase more sustainably-produced or longer-lasting products, or measurably reduce the amount of carbon emissions from public purchasing. Or you might be trying to advance climate mitigation priorities and enable smarter decision-making around how disaster prevention investments are made.
Purchasing or public services that reinforce social inequities.
You might want to use open contracting to improve vendor diversity by boosting opportunities for women-, youth- or minority-owned businesses to participate in public procurement, or build the capacity of small, local suppliers to compete and win government contracts. Or you might want to improve service delivery by improving social safety net programs, helping stock hospitals fairly with the best medicines and protective equipment, or equipping public schools with the supplies and infrastructure they need to serve students and their families.
Why apply?
Advance social, economic, and environmental outcomes in your community.
You already see public procurement as a lever to deliver social, economic, and environmental outcomes. We can help you create and implement a strong plan for achieving your ambitious goals that benefit your communities using effective public contracting strategies.
Learn globally, change locally.
With 200 hours of technical support over 18 months, you will get tailored guidance on how to use public contracting to deliver better results for your project. Learn about what works and what mistakes to avoid when building buy-in, using open data, and implementing results-driven contracting strategies to achieve your goals. You will also receive up to $35,000 worth of direct support, depending on your team needs and progress.
Test, refine, and scale your solutions.
Our Liftoff workshops will help you develop and refine your plan, and our Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) support will help your team document your progress each step of the way, and track and measure your results with procurement data.
Join a community of reformers.
Co-work with experts who can help you adapt proven solutions to your context. Share your story and progress, and participate in regional and global forums to showcase your projects. For inspiration, check out how teams around the world have used Lift to help their reform projects go further, faster.
“Thanks to the Lift process, we were able to provide a clearer direction and ground our ambition.”
Deputy director, Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo
“Lift was instrumental in helping us better articulate and scope our project, and establish feasible objectives. Because of the Lift process, we ended up with a plan we could execute, not just an idea.”
Office of Purchasing and Contracts, Ministry of Finance, City of Buenos Aires
“The project truly raised the bar on how we can think about a creative relationship with suppliers and the public, without compromising the principles of transparency or fairness.”
Procurement expert. On Mexico City's efforts to procure a better bike share system
