Doing Business with the United Nations System of Organisations

The United Nations is made up of an variety of organisational entities (agencies, organisations, commissions, programmes, funds, etc), each with a distinct and separate mandate (covering the political, economic, social, scientific and technical fields). As a result, each organisation has somewhat differing needs in terms of the goods and services they require to fulfill their respective mandates. Each organisation is responsible for its own procurement requirements, however there are many commonalties in the procurement process throughout the system.

As part of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's reform of the United Nations, the procurement activities of the UN System have undergone considerable change in order that the process is not only more efficient and cost effective, but also to maximize transparency, equity and integrity. Towards this end, there is ever increasing co-operation and co-ordination among organizations in the field of procurement.

An effective mechanism exists for exchange of pertinent information throughout the System and there is growing collaboration in the procurement of common items and services. The UN System has embarked on several new and innovative initiatives to ensure the provision of comprehensive, accurate and timely information to member states, the business community and the general public. In this respect, the Internet is now utilized by most UN organisations as a primary instrument in the global dissemination of pertinent information.

With the proliferation of web sites within the UN System it became clear that there was a need to provide a simple and easy way for users to access and navigate through the individual sites of the different organisations. A single portal, http://unbiz.un.int has thus been established to hyperlink the web sites of all participating UN organisations. This is a new initiative and it is expected that all the organisations of the UN System will be included in portal in due course. Each UN organisation will continue to manage and maintain their individual web sites.

The first phase of the initiative will simply provide access to web sites of the various participating UN organisations, while a subsequent phase will give users with access to thematic information, such as details of contract awards, vendor registration, statistics, contacts and upcoming procurement opportunities.

If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can further improve this site and our services, please contact unbiz@un.org.

Thank you.