The Information Platform for Public Infrastructure in Malawi (IPPI) has officially been accredited by the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standards (OC4IDS). This makes Malawi the third African country, after Ghana and Uganda to have such an accredited infrastructure monitoring platform. The IPPI was developed as part of the project, “Strengthening the Capacity of CSOs to Promote Transparency and Accountability in Public Infrastructure Projects in Malawi.” The Project is being managed by the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF), National Construction Industry Council (NCIC)/CoST Malawi and African Institute for Corporate Citizenship (AICC)/Integrity Platform (IP) and is funded by the European Union. UNIK Multimedia, operating out of Lilongwe, Malawi was contracted to perform the technical updating of the platform.
Malawi’s President, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera is the Champion of CoST Malawi and the IPPI was officially launched with a speech delivered by the President on July 12 in which he obliged procurement entities to upload all relevant and up-to-date project information on the IPPI by August 31.
A tremendous effort was put into raising awareness of the IPPI among public officials and training procuring entities, civil society organizations and media representatives on how to use the platform. The IPPI now has data from about 150 projects. The hope is that the milestone of achieving OC4IDS accreditation will ensure that more projects are uploaded onto the platform and that the data uploaded are able to be used in order to achieve greater transparency and accountability in public infrastructure procurement.