Back in July, we spoke with Daniel García Ibáñez, Training Manager at La Cooperativa Humanitària. This cooperative was founded to train people who would like to work with NGOs, improving professionalism in the sector. Daniel was also the person who introduced Solvoz to La Cooperativa last year. That is how we met Núria Pagès Feliu, co-founder of La Cooperativa Humanitària. With a background in Technical Engineering and a master’s degree in e-learning and ITC, she has been an active contributor to the humanitarian sector for the past ten years.

Previous experience

Before Núria started La Cooperativa, she worked for Médicos Sin Fronteras, mostly focused on Supply Chain Management. She recalls such projects as a mass vaccination program against measles in Niger, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and a nutritional program in Niger, as well as general logistics tasks. She has a lot of experience in various projects. Therefore, she has seen many instances in which the usual procurement process in humanitarian aid could improve.

Nuria explains the various complications in the humanitarian supply chain. “In the procurement process it can happen that a certain product could be a perfect solution to a problem. However, the country itself could have importation laws that prohibits the product from getting imported into the country.”. And even if a product is allowed in the country, sometimes that product cannot be used in a certain area of the country. Think of power availability, additional material requirements, and climate conditions.

Next to that, Nuria also highlights that there is too much of a competitive atmosphere between different aid organisations. “Working in a more collaborative way; sharing knowledge of technical solutions and operational strategies could help us to avoid duplication and be more effective. We should share and build knowledge together and bring different views together. This is the case for technical solutions, but for products and services too. This can make a real difference in the procurement process.”. And this is where Solvoz comes in.

Solvoz

Last year, Solvoz appeared on La Cooperativa Humanitària’s radar and Núria got intrigued by the concept of the platform. From the start she was involved with the solutions on the platform. She started out by helping to define contextual criteria and terminology used in the platform. Then she went into creating an effective onboarding path for the platform users, as well as offering support.

While she has been interested in the use of our platform since we first came in contact, her interest has grown, the more she has been able to work with us. “Solvoz is particularly interesting given its benefits for smaller and medium sized organisations. Solvoz offers collective expert knowledge and hands-on support and facilitates the work throughout the entire tender process. Furthermore, the transparency the platform offers towards the bigger organisations should help the sector as a whole.”.

Nuria continues: “In addition, if you have an organisation that wants to procure products locally, you often seem to have very limited options. Solvoz brings all different sellers together for you and makes it easier to procure locally and sustainably.”. Our platform does not only help with the actual procurement of the product/service. It is part of the entire pre- and post-process. Solvoz is an entire ecosystem, being there for you every step of the way.