El Fasher, 5 December 2016 – UNAMID held a day-long seminar aimed at enabling Sudanese business owners to understand the United Nations’ policies and procedures related to business partnerships as well as participate in tenders issued by the Mission. The event, organized under the theme, “How to do business with the UN,” took place today at the Corinthia Hotel in Khartoum.

The seminar is part of continued efforts by the UN to build the capacity of business owners in host countries to encourage longstanding and effective partnerships across the globe. It follows the launch of the UMOJA business application, a new digital portal uniting the functions of different administrative and procurement systems previously used by the UN into a single, efficient and transparent utility, thereby ensuring a level playing field for all external business partners.

In his opening remarks at the seminar, UNAMID’s Joint Special Representative, Martin Uhomoibhi, commended the business acumen of Sudanese companies and said that such events were crucial in providing procedural awareness to external partners. “The UN, in general, and UNAMID, in particular, can benefit greatly through increased collaboration with business partners from the host countries that we serve in. Our work is not done in isolation; therefore, creating opportunities to build the knowledge and capacity of our Sudanese business colleagues is a priority for us,” stated JSR Uhomoibhi.

Some 300 Sudanese companies attended the event along with high-ranking officials from the Government of Sudan.

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Note to Editors: Presentations at the seminar were delivered jointly by Balakrishnan Amirthalingam, Chief, Regional Procurement Office, who represented the UN Procurement Division, New York; Christine Buyoya, Chief Procurement Officer, United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA); and UNAMID’s Chief Procurement Officer, Ishtiaq Aslam. Topics covered included an overview of UNAMID’s procurement needs from external vendors; practical strategies on bidding accurately for UN tenders; information on key technical, qualitative and pricing standards followed by the UN; and so forth.