Under the coordination of the UNICEF Regional office, located in Panama, a regional (covering the Latin America and Caribbean's) bidding is launched in order to select suitable suppliers within the region, with whom, Long Term Arrangement (LTA) for goods will be established. Following a technical and financial evaluations of the offers, these LTAs will include a list of various supplies, as individual and kit format, with set prices. The LTAs will be valid up to 3 years. Depending of the submissions and results of the evaluation, one or more LTAs may be awarded or not.

For UNICEF in the LAC region, establishing LTAs is part of a “cross border sourcing strategy”, which will offer better options for the UNICEF country offices to procure locally. Around 87% of the procurement of goods are currently done offshore and so, by establishing LTAs against reliable suppliers and competitive pricing and against quality products, UNICEF may enhance its regional/local sourcing approach.

These LTAs will be used, if needed, by the UNICEF country offices in the LAC region to support a sudden emergency response in the region (earthquake, floods, volcano, civil unrest…) or regular program activities.

The regional ITB is targeting in a first instance the markets of Mexico, Panama, Colmbia, Argentina. Based on the outputs of the bidding, further markets will be explored.