The director of the UN Regional Service Centre Entebbe, Mr. Paulin Djomo, said during 2022, Ugandan service providers only delivered products and services worth $33 million, which was less than 1% of the overall procurement volume. He was speaking on the sidelines of the UN Business Seminar in Entebbe, Wakiso District.
He said that as a result, Ugandan service providers need to figure out how to steadily grow their share of the $5 billion (or around Shs18 trillion) in UN procurement opportunities.
According to the UN Secretariat Mr. Djomo, typically processes 66,000 business invoices annually, he stated; “The UN Secretariat procurement volume from Ugandan suppliers was $33.07m in 2022. More than 6,486 Ugandan suppliers have registered on the United Nations Global Marketplace at various levels but we need more.”
The UN Regional Service Centre Entebbe is a shared service facility that offers a variety of services to several UN operations in Africa, including administration, logistics, and information and communications technology. More than 18 UN operations are supported by the center in a variety of nations, including the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Cameroon, and Nigeria. As a result, the Ugandan population has a tremendous potential that, if properly used, could make it a significant source of income.
“The number of Ugandan suppliers is very small. We would like to see an increase of Ugandan contractors doing business with us,” Mr.Djomo said.
More than 70 Ugandan suppliers of goods and services attended the UN Business Seminar to examine ways to increase the number of local contractors and develop capacity for long-term engagement between the UN and vendors.
According to UN data on purchases published in 2021, Ugandan vendors accounted for $186.6 million in total purchases. Although Uganda is ranked 37th out of the 193 nations that feed the UN, the center is still located there.
Some of the top five procurement categories are logistics (transport and storage), industry, industrial cleaning, building and construction, and IT.
