Gender-responsive procurement

UN Women strives to ensure that all operations, including procurement processes, support its mandate to achieve gender equality and empower women. Gender-responsive procurement (GRP) is the sustainable selection of services, goods, and works that considers the impact on gender equality that goes beyond cost management. It also involves leveraging purchasing and sourcing opportunities to promote gender equality and support social and economic progress through gender-responsive measures at all stages and tiers of procurement and the supply chain. GRP includes due diligence approaches to identify and mitigate risks to gender equality, including women’s rights and non-discrimination, as well as to identify opportunities to advance gender mainstreaming in the supply chain.

The United Nations, as well as the public and private sectors, can leverage procurement to achieve great socioeconomic change for women and girls on a global scale by ensuring the gender responsiveness of the vendors and promoting women-owned businesses.

Procurement plays a vital role in sustainable development and gender equality, aligning with SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment and SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production.

Gender-responsive procurement model policy framework

The “Gender-responsive procurement model policy framework” (GRP-MPF) represents a significant advancement in the United Nations’ efforts to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment through its procurement processes. By providing a standardized set of definitions and procedures, the GRP-MPF not only aligns with each UN entity’s existing procurement practices, but also offers flexibility, allowing it to tailor the implementation to its unique operational context and market conditions.

Women’s Empowerment Principles

The Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) are a set of principles offering guidance to businesses on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community. UN Women suppliers are invited to become signatories to the WEPs. While voluntary, the commitment clearly signals suppliers’ support for UN Women’s mandate. By early 2024, more than 9,000 businesses had adopted the WEPs.

GRP and suppliers

A significant focus of GRP is engaging with gender-responsive suppliers (GRS), women-owned businesses (WOB), and women entrepreneurs. A GRS meets strict criteria for integrating gender equality principles in workplace policies and practices, aiming for gender balance in employment and leadership, closing the gender pay gap, and ensuring comprehensive compliance with international labour standards and the WEPs. A WOB is a business that is at least 51-per-cent-owned, -managed, or -controlled by women. Sourcing from WOBs and GRSs aims to economically empower women and create decent jobs, ensuring gender equality and better outcomes for women across the labour market and business environment.

United Nations Global Marketplace knowledge centre

For United Nations Global Marketplace (UNGM) users, please read UN Women’s best practices on UNGM’s Gender-responsive procurement page.

GRP Task Force

In 2019, the United Nations established a Task Force under the Procurement Network of the High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) that has led GRP advancement to promote transformative changes in gender norms and relations. The Task Force has a six-step Action Plan that has been developing continuously.