Overview 

We promote accountability through the CoST assurance process – an independent review of the disclosed data by assurance teams based within CoST national programs. The teams identify key issues of concern in relation to the items listed in the CoST IDS and put technical jargon into plain language. This allows social accountability stakeholders to easily understand the issues and hold decision-makers to account.

Between 2010 and 2016, CoST Ethiopia’s assurance process reviewed 52 building, road and water infrastructure projects representing US$3.27 billion of investment. In 2016, an Aggregation Study was published by CoST Ethiopia to review and synthesise the project information disclosed, and provide a comprehensive overview of the state of Ethiopian infrastructure.

CoST Ethiopia has undertaken five assurance processes. A full mix of stakeholders from government, the private sector, and media and civil society attended CoST Ethiopia’s  report launches. For example,  the third assurance report, which assessed 14 building projects with a collective value of US$ 78.2 million, found procuring entities disclosed an average of 68% of the CoST IDS.

In Ethiopia the CoST IDS has been adapted to the Ethiopian context so that 70 data points (or items) are used to assess infrastructure transparency across key stages of the project cycle.

In addition, the Open Contracting for Infrastructure Data Standard (OC4IDS) which is recently launched by CoST International is also adopted as a tool that combines contract level publication using the Open Contracting Data Standard with project-level publication using the CoST IDS to create a view of a bigger picture of infrastructure investment and delivery.

The OC4IDS transforms paper-based processes into machine-readable open data which boosts efficiency, strengthens competition and delivers better value for money. It provides detailed guidance on what – and how – to publish data at three levels:

• The project level, covering identification, preparation, tender management, implementation, completion, operations and maintenance and decommission phases
• The contracting summary level, covering the contracts for project design, construction and supervision
• The contract process detail level, where updates and changes to a contract can be monitored.

The last assurance process highlighted that progress still needs to be made to enable a culture of disclosure in Ethiopia. There are also issues relating to time and cost overruns, poor preparation for projects, noncompliance with procurement regulations and capacity limitations within the sector. A key recommendation was to amend procurement regulations in such a way as they cover the full spectrum of procurement, enhancing the capacity of enforcing bodies and introducing transparency. Crucially, these all require buy-in from political leadership.

Various reports for CoST Ethiopia’s previous assurance processes can be found below.