IT supply for UN agencies, INGOs and donor-funded programmes

Often, but the honest answer depends entirely on what is on the list, and we would rather do that arithmetic with you before you commit than afterwards. Equipment held in-country can usually be delivered and installed comfortably inside ten weeks. Anything requiring import needs the manufacturing lead time plus a realistic clearance allowance, and that is precisely where optimistic estimates cause real harm. Where a list mixes both, we will often propose staging it so the in-country lines commit the budget on time and the imported lines follow behind. If a date genuinely cannot be met, we will tell you so rather than take the order and apologise later.

No. We are not currently listed on UNGM or on any agency or INGO vendor roster, and we would rather state that here than have a procurement officer discover it during evaluation. Where roster registration is a hard prerequisite, we are not the right supplier for that particular process and will say so plainly. Where it is not, several routes work: supply through an implementing partner who holds the contracting relationship, direct procurement below competitive thresholds, or being evaluated on documentation ahead of a formal process so we are a known quantity when one opens. Tell us which applies and we will be straightforward about whether we fit.

We ask about exemption status before quoting rather than after, because it changes the shape of a quotation and not merely its total. Tax is shown as its own identified line either way, so your finance team can process the invoice without asking us to reissue it, and where an exemption certificate must accompany the supply we will tell you what we need and when we need it. Where the position is unclear — and it often is, because some agencies hold exemption on import but not on local purchase — we will quote both ways rather than assume the more favourable one. That is our process; the tax position itself is for your finance colleagues to confirm.

This is the question we would most like to be asked at specification stage rather than at handover, because by handover every decision that matters has been taken. Equipment transferring to a counterpart department or implementing partner is inherited by an office with a smaller budget, often in a district where consumables are harder to find. So we specify for that second owner: models whose consumables are genuinely available in-province, configurations the receiving office can realistically support, and warranty re-registered in their name at handover wherever the manufacturer channel permits. The handover sheet carries the service route and part numbers in writing.

Yes, and the planning matters considerably more than the installation. Because a return visit to a district sub-office may need clearance and movement approval measured in weeks rather than days, we plan the work as a single consecutive-day run and carry the spares a second trip would otherwise be needed for. What we will not do is claim a level of security clearance or vetting we do not hold. We work to your access procedures and notification requirements rather than around them, and where a site is one we cannot reach safely at a given time we will say so instead of scheduling a visit that does not happen.