SPARK: Rethinking public procurement as engine for local resilience
AUTHOR: Sabina Reichert, LEAD EXPERT FOR URBACT TN SPARK
On paper, the municipality of Kavala (Greece) looks like many other medium-sized European cities. Back in 2018, it had a relatively solid budget, a tourism-driven economy, and a long list of goods and services to buy every year to keep the city running. Yet officials noticed a worrying pattern: local companies were losing public contracts, larger firms from outside the city were winning more tenders, and no one could clearly say how much of the city’s spending was actually supporting the local economy.
