One of the country's first integrity pacts (IPs) was signed in 2000 between the Morón municipality and four bidders for a garbage collection service contract valued at US$48 million. The agreement included commitments from the bidders and the contracting authority to refrain from corruption and collusion, disclose contract-related payments and procurement documents, introduce severe sanctions for violations, and use national arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism. Poder Ciudadano - Transparency International's chapter in Argentina - was the monitor for the bid evaluation, award decision, and contract implementation.

More than 500 people attended the initial public hearing on the bidding documents and terms of the contract and provided comments and suggestions. Following the hearing, the contracting authority published the final bidding documents and an explanation for incorporating or excluding the feedback. Thanks to the public’s input and clearer awarding specifications, the final award decision was made for US$32 million, significantly lower than initially expected. Two years later, Poder Ciudadano also monitored public hearings to renegotiate the contract.

In 2006, as the contract for the garbage recollection in Morón expired, the municipality launched another public contracting process. Poder Ciudadano and two other civil society organisations (CSOs) signed an agreement to observe the execution of public hearings. After that, Poder Ciudadano signed an IP to serve as a monitor for the bidding process. Compared to the previous IP, they observed an increase in the quality of citizen participation in public hearings on specific aspects such as environmental concerns. One of the reasons for this improvement was the inclusion of other CSOs with expertise in the field.

In 2002, a bidding process initiated by the Argentine Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to acquire 3,315,000 textbooks was annulled due to participating publishers’ objections about the evaluation process, the specialist evaluators, and the procedure in the local jurisdictions. In response to these issues, the ministry invited Poder Ciudadano in 2003 to monitor the new bidding, guaranteeing a transparent procedure and the most complete and comprehensive participation under equal conditions for all interested publishers.

As a result, in 2003, the Argentine Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology adopted an integrity pact (IP) for a large-scale textbook procurement worth US$14.5 million. The IP was signed between the ministry and all interested bidders, and Poder Ciudadano served as a monitor. The IP featured public hearings on the bidding documents and a mechanism for the evaluation committee to disclose their private interests. The results of the tool’s use include an increased number of bidders, a streamlined procurement process and improved transparency in the selection of textbooks.

In 2008, Poder Ciudadano collaborated with the Esteban Echeverría municipality – part of the Province of Buenos Aires - to implement an integrity pact to foster integrity in the bidding process for the city’s garbage collection services. This also included independent monitoring by an independent technical expert.

In the pre-tendering phase, a public hearing was convened with more than 200 people, including local inhabitants, businesspeople, chambers of commerce and members of the municipal legislative power. After the hearing, the municipality incorporated 50 per cent of the people's observations into the tender’s bidding requirements. As a result, the amount the municipality paid for the contract was reduced, saving approximately US$950,000.

In 2016, the municipality and Poder Ciudadano implemented a similar integrity pact for the new international public tender process for the residential waste collection service.

In 2010, Poder Ciudadano signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Environment and Public Space of Buenos Aires and the civil society organisation Cambio Democrático to monitor the bidding process for garbage collection services.

After carrying out a series of interviews with relevant actors in the waste collection process, Poder Ciudadano worked jointly with a social-technical observer who examined the bidding terms and conditions with transparency criteria and promoted the principles of public contracting. Poder Ciudadano also monitored the public hearing regarding this bidding process, with 63 registered participants, 43 speakers and three exhibitors. After the public hearing, the city government answered each of the observations made by the speakers. Although some suggestions were included in the final bidding documents, most of them were not incorporated.

In 2016, Poder Ciudadano and the state-owned telecommunications enterprise ARSAT signed an agreement to implement tools and guidelines for anti-corruption and open government in a high-value public contracting procedure for maintenance of the Federal Fibre Optic Network.

As part of the agreement, Poder Ciudadano would monitor the procedure as an external observer from the pre-tendering to contract award and signature stages, provide non-binding recommendations concerning technical specifications, transparency, access to information, and communication channels, and carry out a consultation process with citizens, businesses, and other relevant stakeholders on the contracting procedure. To adequately fulfil these tasks, the monitor was granted full access to relevant documents, meetings, and communications.

In a preliminary report, Poder Ciudadano recommended making the signature of an IP or an “integrity declaration” mandatory for bidders to take part in the procurement and to consider non-signature as a relevant basis for not selecting a specific bid proposal. The model declaration they proposed contained commitments to refrain from corruption and collusion, recognise the role of the independent monitor, and, following national legislation on beneficial ownership, certify that the IP signatories represented the totality of the firm’s shares and rights to vote.

Following Poder Ciudadano’s recommendation, ARSAT implemented the proposed changes and made signing the “integrity declaration” mandatory.

In 2017, Argentina’s government adopted a federal decree providing guidelines for planning and applying the integrity pact (IP) to a certain category of public contracts. The decree establishes the integrity pact as one of four possible measures a contracting entity can adopt when there is a conflict of interest between a bidder in a public contracting process and a public official.

The decree defines the IP as an agreement between contracting authorities and bidders to refrain from corruption and observe principles of transparency, integrity and fair competition. While breaches to the IP can be used as grounds for excluding bidders from a tender, the decree does not foresee any independent monitoring – compliance is to be ensured by the contracting authority.

In the same year, the collaboration between Poder Ciudadano, the city of San Luís and other stakeholders in business and civil society led to the adoption of a regulation that made the signature of IPs mandatory for bidders to participate in all the city’s public procurements. Apart from the standard integrity commitments, the San Luís IP also includes clauses requiring all bidders to disclose beneficial ownership information and the obligation for large-scale procurement to engage citizens through public hearings.

In recent years, Poder Ciudadano has been participating in the Public Infrastructure Observatory led by the Ministry of Public Infrastructure, fostering the inclusion of the principle of integrity in the contracting and execution of public infrastructure projects.