Geographical Area
ColombiaLatin America and the Caribbean
Scope
National
Home
Introduction
How to use this toolkit
What is Open SPP?
What our users told us
Plan
Establish an enabling environment
Prioritize
Monitoring & evaluation
Build support and capabilities
Create an Action Plan
Implement
Assess needs
Choose a procurement method
Engage with the market
Set sustainability criteria
Prepare contract obligations
Monitor implementation
Open data & measuring progress
Options for data use
SPP uptake
Carbon reduction
Gender inclusion
Life cycle costing
Economic Development
Sector guidance
Construction sector
ICT sector
Resources
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Downloadable tools
Resource directory
Case study database
Guide to ecolabels
Open SPP FAQs
In Colombia, corruption is estimated to cost the country around 7.5 billion USD a year. To work towards tackling this problem, the Transparency Secretariat decided to engage citizens in monitoring activities, and developed the Elefantes Blancos app.
The Elefantes Blancos, or “white elephants”, app allows Colombian citizens to upload photos of abandoned and incomplete construction projects across the country. Citizens can also include information on the procurement agency responsible for the project, as well as its name and value. Users of the app can vote for the most disliked project, and government prioritizes investigations based on the most frequently reported “white elephants”.
The app was introduced in 2013 and, by 2017, the Transparency Secretariat had 54 projects valued at 163 million USD.