Solvoz Newsletter March 2024: Gender-Responsive Procurement, New Features, Localisation and Market Assessments

Calling for partners: Gender-Responsive Procurement Alliance is about to launch!

The Gender-Responsive Procurement Alliance is an initiative by and for the sector, founded by SheSupplies and Solvoz in 2023. The GRP Alliance offers an innovative partnership and portal for key stakeholders to create fair and sustainable supply chains that foster gender equality, diversity and inclusion.

Astrid Aafjes (Executive Director of SheSupplies, co-founder of the GRP Alliance): "Gender-responsive procurement amplifies the impact you can make on gender quality (SDG5) and others SDGs. The commitment to gender equality through gender-responsive procurement allows NGOs to increase their impact and collaborate more closely with donors and funders to align on the mission, vision and impact of their work"

Many large international development and humanitarian NGOs play a crucial role in addressing social and environmental issues through disaster relief and aid programs. However, a significant challenge lies in their procurement practices, which account for a substantial portion of their expenditures (between 60-80% (Moshtari et al, 2021; Stumpf et al, 2023). These practices have come under scrutiny for perpetuating gender biases within the supply chain, with women-owned businesses receiving less than 1% of the money spent by NGOs, governments, and corporations (Vazquez & Frankel, 2017). Embracing gender-responsive procurement practices could foster positive social change and better align with the NGOs' and donor’s missions.

The Gender-Responsive Procurement Alliance (GRP-Alliance) is currently forming a coalition (with NGOs, donors, foundations and more) to ensure NGOs can strengthen their commitment and impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG5 (gender equality) and SDG8. The GRP-Alliance offers a transformative approach to procurement:?

1. Fostering awareness, engaging and mobilising key stakeholders around gender-responsive procurement.
2. Building capacity (NGOs, Donors, Foundation and Suppliers) to develop and implement gender-responsive procurement policies and practices that align with their mission and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).?
3. Facilitating access to socially responsible and sustainable suppliers through an online portal.?

Make sure to follow the GRP Alliance in the weeks and months to come here on LinkedIn (click here). Reach out today to the GRP-Alliance if you wish to join the alliance or want to learn more.

Exciting new features for suppliers are now live!

It was already announced in the last newsletter, but live as of this week: new supplier functionality! From this week onwards, suppliers can do more than 'just' register in our database (currently containing over 400.000 suppliers). Up to last week, registered suppliers received automatic notifications when an NGO, organisation or company using Solvoz (or one of the other portals operating on Solvoz's technology) launched a market assessment, RFQ, RFP, RFI or tender. From this week onwards, we have expanded the supplier's features on Solvoz to strengthen markets further.

Public profiles and supplier catalogues in Solvoz

Suppliers registering today can now decide to make their profile publicly visible to our users and include their products, supplies and services in their own catalogue within the Solvoz system. Solvoz now offers supplier catalogues, besides the current open-access generic catalogue (see more about open-access knowledge here) and the user's organisational and personal catalogue.

Having your supplier catalogue publicly available enhances your visibility to the market and our users, expanding your reach, and contributing to the (humanitarian, aid and health) market in LMIC countries. If you would like to learn more about the benefits for suppliers, please take a look at our information page here.

How to register as a supplier:

Registering as a Solvoz supplier is easy and consists of three simple and intuitive steps: First sign up in our registration process and identify as a supplier here (click here and click the Sign-up button in the top right corner). Secondly, confirm your registration with the email you will receive. Thirdly, the company information will then be validated (company identification). As soon as your supplier account has been activated and approved on our platform (which can take up to 48 hours), you can further set up your company (membership) account and start promoting your products and services with your company's catalogue.

Want to learn more about how to register? We have an online free training with guidance materials available, please click here to access our online learning portal.

How to create a supplier catalogue on Solvoz platform:

Once your supplier account is set up and validated in the system, you can continue setting up your company's catalogue. This requires you to define your products and services accurately on the platform. Once all technical information is confirmed (name, descriptions, criteria, specifications, picture, etc.), you can promote those items from your private catalogue into supplier solutions (products, kits, services, designs) in our Solvoz open-access catalogue. These will appear as supplier solutions for our users. Before being accepted and visible globally, an assessment takes place regarding the accuracy of the specifications provided (as above, please click here to access our online learning portal).

Special offering: the first 1000 newly registered suppliers get the catalogue services for free!

Special offering starting today! The first 1000 suppliers to register will get the bronze supplier membership account for free (the bronze supplier membership account enables you to have up to 50 items in your supplier catalogue). If you are already a pre-registered supplier in Solvoz, please contact us if you would like to make use of this upgrade.

If you wish to have more guidance on how to register, set up an account and create your company's catalogue, please access our online free learning materials here.

Stay tuned; from next month onwards, we will start hosting webinars for suppliers on these new functionalities, too! Make sure to follow Solvoz on LinkedIn to subscribe to the forthcoming webinars!

Call to localise logistics at the African Logistics Conference 2024

This year's African Logistics Conference took place on the 14th and 15th of February 2024 in Dakar, Senegal. Main theme throughout the conference was: building Local, Sustainable, and Resilient Supply Chains within Africa, being organised by our partner HELP Logistics.

Professor Nathan Kunz, Professor of Sustainable Supply Chain Management?of Bern University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland) gave a great keynote about local supply chains as a driver for resilient communities, tapping into each of the conference themes. Our CEO, Claire Barnhoorn, spoke about her passion for localising our humanitarian procurement efforts. Whereby she emphasised the importance of the right wording and definitions of humanitarian logistics as well as the importance of strengthening our local and regional sourcing within our sector. Jens Grim, UNICEF's Regional Chief Supply for West and Central Africa explained about UNICEF's work on local manufacturing and production of nutrition supplies for Children. Gilles Yabi, President and Founder of WATHI, the West African Citizen Think Tank, spoke about the importance of local and resilient supply chains as one of the main courses of action to transform West African societies. Seynabou Diakhoumpa, Operations Manager - West Africa and Francophone countries of HELP Logistics gave clear arguments on the importance of sustaining resilient Supply Chains.

During the conference, various academics, practitioners and West African companies discussed how to overcome hindrances and how to move things forward following the conference. Great discussions took place between (among others) Professor Diego Vega, (Hanken School of Economics (Finland)), Professor Moritz Petersen (Kuehne Logistics University (Germany) and Bruno Vandermeulenbroecke (Regional Director West Africa of HELP Logistics) regarding sustainable supply chains and humanitarian logistics. We are looking forward to the video coming forward following the conference and the other outputs of the conference being shared shortly!

Need support for (local) market assessments?

Besides running your own market assessments, RfQs and tenders on Solvoz (which includes our free sourcing support and instant access to all our suppliers locally, regionally and globally), we can also provide benchmarking or market assessments as a consultancy service on our tool.?Do you need support to access a national or regional market? Contact us today (or contact us directly in the chat function on LinkedIn) for any (urgent) requests or if you face limited resources or capacity like time or staffing.

Latest RFQ on the Solvoz portal

Today, an RFQ in Kenya has been launched for an LTA (Framework agreement) of essential drugs (generics). Are you a supplier or manufacturer, registered in Kenya for sales and distribution of medical supplies? Are you able to quote in USD and deliver within Kenya? We would invite you to take a look at this RFQ (click here).