The Principles on Commercial Transparency in Public Contracts. Center for Global Development. The Working Group on Commercial Transparency in Public Contracts. March 7, 2019
Every year, governments worldwide sign contracts worth trillions of dollars. They buy textbooks and fighter planes, hire consultants, commission firms to run railways and build bridges, take out loans and give guarantees, grant mining concessions, and issue licenses to use the public airwaves. Each time, legal documents specify who will pay how much to whom for what. These contracts commit taxpayer resources and national wealth, often for many years. They help determine the quality of vital government services as well as the financing that governments will have in the future. Citizens should know what is in those contracts—not least, to be able to hold governments to account. But they can only do so if the contracts are published. [Note: contains copyrighted material].
[PDF format, 32 pages].
