Table of Contents
- For Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Government, Update Procurement Policies (Afua Bruce)
- Wisdom from the Ancient Greeks for Procurement Reform: First, Do No Harm (Mikey Dickerson)
- To Improve Benefit Delivery, States Should Adopt a Minimum Viable Procurement Process (Dahna Goldstein)
- State IT Procurement Reform: Accessing Pro Bono Expertise and Best Practices in Service Delivery (Robert Gordon)
- Starting with Procurement: As Governmental Agencies Increase the Role Technology Plays in Benefit Distribution, Inclusivity Must Remain at the Forefront (Kevin Harris, PhD)
- Two Transformative Movements in Procurement: Creating an Ecosystem for Dialogue & Experimentation and Pursuing Outcome-Oriented Results (Sascha Haselmayer)
- Rewiring the Procurement Black Box (Without Being the Bottleneck on Change) (Bruce Haupt)
- Government Procurement: Reconceptualizing Public Interest for Public Lawyers (Michael Karanicolas)
- IT Procurement: A Critical Enabler for Improving Government Service Delivery (Ryan Ko)
- Five Systemic Ways to Radically Reform Procurement to Improve Government Services (Reilly Martin)
- Our State's First Agile Development Services Procurement (Giuseppe Morgana)
- The Harry Potter Approach to Procurement (It’s the Long Game) (Marina Nitze)
- What We Can Learn from NYC Procurement Reform: Prioritize Transparency, Accountability, and Analytics in Public Procurement (Albert Pulido)
- Better Data Sharing for Benefits Delivery (Chris Sadler and Claire Park)
- Invest in People and Infrastructure: Practical Tips for Teams and Longer-Term Recommendations to Change the Culture of Procurement in Digital Service Delivery (Shelby Switzer)
For Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Government, Update Procurement Policies (Afua Bruce)
About the Author: Afua Bruce is a public interest technologist whose career has spanned the government, corporate, academic, and nonprofit sectors. She is the former Executive Director of the White House’s National Science and Technology Council, and is currently a consultant to mission-driven organizations on the equitable and inclusive use of data and technology. Afua’s latest book, The Tech That Comes Next: How Changemakers, Philanthropists, and Policymakers Can Build an Equitable World, examines how technology can advance equity.
The Biden Administration, through an Executive Order signed on June 25, 2021, declared that “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are priorities for [the] Administration and benefit the entire Federal Government and the Nation.” Although this particular Executive Order focused on procedures and priorities across the Federal workforce, the same principles should be extended and applied to procurement processes across all levels of government.
Efforts within and outside of government to propose ways of strengthening how the government functions and the efficacy of service delivery often include recommendations for improving technical systems. One way to influence the development and deployment of technology within the government agencies is to reform the procurement process, which is often a long, arduous, and opaque process that favors large, established companies operating with fixed and traditional—and sometimes outdated—activities.
Unfortunately, relying on larger and older companies results in a lack of diversity among the winners of procurement processes. In fact, less than 4% of Federal procurement dollars go to companies owned by Black or Latino individuals.1 Furthermore, smaller entities, which in many cases are led by and are employing a greater diversity of individuals, are unsuccessful in the source selection process. Without the time, resources, and knowledge to dedicate to navigating procurement, these smaller entities may not be considered competitive for general government procurement spending.
The traditional government procurement process also rewards organizations whose procedures align with existing procedures and expectations within government. While this satisfies the risk-averse nature of government procurement, it dismisses newer business practices. As the number and success of organizations that successfully design technology for individuals in historically underserved communities increases, so do the various methodologies for centering communities in the development of technology systems that administer benefits. Additionally, these more inclusive processes often require additional time and intentional iterative design practices. It is difficult for these new methodologies, which require some amount of flexibility, to prove themselves in a procurement system based on past successes within government.
“Because,” as Executive Order 14035 states, “advancing equity requires a systematic approach to embedding fairness in decision-making processes, executive departments and agencies (agencies) must recognize and work to redress inequities in their policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunity.” Reforming the procurement process can support this goal. By building on recent efforts to diversify source selection, and by creating new procurement frameworks that explicitly allow for iteration and reward community involvement in technology design, all levels of government can begin to address diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility from the start—from the conception of the technology systems that ultimately drive how people interact with policies and receive government services.