Writing

Writing on open data, government transparency, procurement disclosure, and building accountability systems that survive real constraints.

Featured Sector Analysis

The traffic light decision

Why replacing the risk score with a traffic light may be the most useful interface change in infrastructure oversight this decade, three ways it can still fail, and the one test that will tell us in 2026 whether it actually works.

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Three validations, or you have shipped a draft
Sector Analysis

Three validations, or you have shipped a draft

On 8-9 April 2026, 143 officers from 59 Ugandan agencies stress-tested the Government Procurement Portal. What they exposed in two days reframed what 'launching' a transparency portal actually means: regulator sign-off, officer training, and data quality are three different validations, and shipping with only one of them is shipping a draft.

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Three integration patterns for OC4IDS portals
Technical Guidance

Three integration patterns for OC4IDS portals

Three integration patterns I have actually shipped on OC4IDS portals, and the failure mode each one carries. The standard is rarely the bottleneck. The source-system reality is.

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What 100,000 Contracts Taught Me About Procurement Transparency
Implementation

What 100,000 Contracts Taught Me About Procurement Transparency

After processing 100,000 procurement contracts in Uganda, I learned that disclosure isn't transparency. Here are the patterns the data revealed and what I'd build differently today.

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Why Disclosure Portals Die (And How to Build Ones That Don't)
Sector Analysis

Why Disclosure Portals Die (And How to Build Ones That Don't)

Every infrastructure disclosure portal I have worked with that launched to a press release went dark within three years. The failures follow predictable patterns. Here is what the survivors have in common.

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The OC4IDS Implementation Checklist Nobody Gives You
Technical Guidance

The OC4IDS Implementation Checklist Nobody Gives You

The documentation explains the schema. It doesn't tell you which decisions haunt you eighteen months in. After five implementations across three countries, here's the checklist I wish I'd had.

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