UN Women procures more than USD 176 million worth of services and goods each year to support its programme of work. UN Women is committed to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide, while delivering green results, with an emphasis on transparency and effectiveness. UN Women is also committed to providing tools to, and supplementing the capacity of, its partners—such as governments, other UN entities, and corporations—to achieve socioeconomic objectives through practicing and encouraging gender-responsive procurement. Therefore, UN Women has taken the lead to integrate gender considerations in its procurement processes.
UN Women has migrated to Quantum ERP, a new system that is live for procurement activities initiated by UN Women globally. To participate, all suppliers need to register in our new ERP system through the registration page. Registered suppliers may access the system at supplier.quantum.partneragencies.org.
This manual provides corporations with a deeper understanding of the barriers and challenges preventing women-owned businesses from accessing and fully participating in local and global values chains. It also provides sensible, actionable steps that corporations can take with their strategic sourcing decisions to evaluate the diversity of their supplier base and to increase the share of women-owned businesses in their procurement.