The lack of transparency in public procurement has been an ongoing challenge in Kosovo, but this is beginning to change according to recent reports.  The newly launched 2018 Transparency Index in Public Procurement highlights significant progress at both local and central levels in Kosovo.

The greatest transparency achievement reported in the 2018 index is the first-time-ever publishing of the municipal-awarded procurement contracts on the e-Procurement platform.  Easy online access allows citizens to check where public money is going.  In addition to utilizing the e-platform, 23 out of 38 municipalities across Kosovo are also voluntarily publishing procurement contracts on official municipal websites—an increase of 28 percent from the previous year.

Significant increases in performance were also seen in budgetary transparency and access to public documents.  Budget transparency made a jump of 16 percent from 47 percent in 2017 to 63 percent in 2018.  This improvement shows the willingness of municipalities to work towards accountability of their expenditures.  In addition to being more transparent in how they plan and spend their budgets, municipalities are also responding to 78 percent of the requests for access to documents.  Since documents are now available online, the overall number of requests, however, is decreasing.

The official launch event for the 2018 index brought together a wide range of stakeholders, underscoring the importance of informing citizens about the level of transparency. This also encourages municipalities to continue conducting more efficient and transparent procurements in the future.

The 2018 Transparency Index in Public Procurement is published by Kosovo Democratic Institute, as part of a grant from USAID/Kosovo Transparent Effective and Accountable Municipalities activity, and measures performance of 38 municipalities against 43 indicators.