Some quick thoughts on blockchain use cases in procurement

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Interest in the use of blockchain in the context of public procurement keeps rising by the day. It is hard to find a country where this is not a topic of discussion, although there seems to be a wide spectrum from enthusiastic and proactive approaches (eg in the UK, with the promotion of procurement-centred blockchain use cases by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain) to more skeptical and wait-and-see approaches (in Scandinavian countries, eg Denmark or Sweden).

At the same time as some theoretical work starts to emerge—see eg Sope Williams-Elegbe’s exploratory inaugural lecture and Raquel Carvalho’s (not always very clear or accurate) recent paper—the need to get some practical insights in order to support theoretical speculation becomes all-important. However, accessing this information can be a little tricky, in particular if local or regional projects are only publicised in languages other than English.

So we organised a couple of webinars on the topic and asked participants to pool together any use cases they know of (and thanks to all of them for their contributions). In rough terms (and with apologies for any over-simplification), it looks like there are three main areas of experimentation:

  1. Development of proof-of-concept / pilot projects seeking to tackle some parts of the procurement process, such as (a) initiatives on exclusion/selection of tenderers in Costa Rica and the Basque Country (Spain) and (b) initiatives on tender submission and evaluation by smart contracts in Aragon (Spain)

  2. Development of proof-of-concept / pilot projects seeking to carry out the entire procurement process on the blockchain, such as in Mexico (federal level) and Cape Town (South Africa)

  3. Development of ‘blockchain-like’ database approaches that seek to replicate some of the main features of a blockchain (in terms of data de-centralisation and tamper-evidence features), such as some projects run by the EBRD

We also learnt about other Govtech / Regtech applications of blockchain, such as the Finnish initiatives to provide bank cards to refugees and to centralise the exchange of information on mandatory motor vehicle insurance. There are also other well-known projects around property registers (eg for land and IP).

On the whole, though, it seems like the most promising potential applications of blockchain are those linked to information management/storage and the transfer of digital assets, and that there is more potential in those cases where there is no existing (working) database for their management. The difficulties of implementing blockchain-based solutions for not-super-simple procurement and off-chain aspects of procurement seem too high to overcome any time soon.

It also seems like that there is a certain tension between the promise of transparency associated with blockchain infrastructure and the other attributes of the technology (mainly, tamper-evidence qualities), at least where the design of the blockchain is heavily permissioned and centralised. Perhaps as a very European issue (but also more broadly), compliance with data protection rules also comes up as a legal hurdle in every other project.

If you know of any other blockchain use cases in procurement, or if you have any other views on the potential of this technology for procurement governance, please comment on this post or get in touch: a.sanchez-graells@bristol.ac.uk