United Nations Office for Project Services

With more than 30 years of specialized experience, UNOPS is a central procurement resource in the United Nations system. This critical role was reconfirmed in 2010 by a General Assembly resolution clarifying our mandate. It buys around $800 million of high-quality, best-value goods, works and services each year, helping to ensure the successful and timely implementation of our partners’ peace building, humanitarian and development projects.

Environmental, economic and social sustainability

UNOPS is advancing sustainable practices in procurement in a range of ways:

• building long-term environmental, economic and social considerations into solicitation and contract documents

• informing our partners of the environmental impacts of various products

• applying different evaluation models to allow consideration of life cycle cost and total cost of ownership

• ensuring our suppliers comply with specific conditions on mines, child labour, sexual exploitation, and the fundamental rights of workers

• supporting the United Nations Global Compact and strongly encouraging our suppliers to do so. The Global Compact is a voluntary corporate citizenship network which asks companies to abide by a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption

• partnering with other UN bodies to develop sustainable procurement training tools, conduct assessments and develop capacity in sustainable procurement. For example UNOPS helped produce Buying For A Better World, a sustainable procurement guide for the United Nations, published in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Training Center of the ILO.

Supplier outreach UNOPS collaborates with non-governmental organizations, local authorities and state chambers of commerce to inform potential vendors on how to do business with the UN. This programme facilitates the development of local capacity, increases transparency around UN procurement and boosts our access to new supply markets, especially in developing countries.

Procurement Services

UNOPS Procurement Services offer everything from one-time, stand-alone procurement solutions to complete management of the procurement process. Services include

• Supply market analysis and development of sourcing strategies
• Developing specifications and statements of work
• Execution of the sourcing process
• Contracting and contracts management
• Procurement capacity development

Partners

• The United Nations
• Donor and recipient governments
• Intergovernmental organizations
• International and regional financial institutions
• Non-governmental organizations
• Foundations
• The private sector

UN Web Buy Plus

UN Web Buy Plus is a global eCommerce solution which provides the most important goods and services for the aid and development community, via a central point of entry a new e-commerce platform. It offers an expanded list of products, which now includes mobile clinics, water tanks, solar panels, earth-moving equipment and generators.

Since 2000 UN Web Buy, has delivered more than $1 billion worth of goods and services in 128 countries. Everything offered on UN Web Buy Plus is reviewed prior to being made available for purchase. Sustainability considerations are an integral part of that process.

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