A committee made up of an odd number of members (at least three) with the necessary technical and administrative expertise to give an informed opinion on tenders or grant applications.

Short for “Best Value for Money”; the best combination available of monetary and non-monetary requirements that an organisation can get from its selection of suppliers.

Short for “Humanitarian Procurement Centres”. Are not-for-profit organisations specialised in the technical and commercial management of supplies and services necessary for the implementation of humanitarian actions. They can provide technical assistance in procurement or supply pre-established stocks, purchasing or logistics capacity

Short for “International Organisation for Standardisation”. An independent entity that has been thinking and standardising the formulas that describes the best way of doing something.

Guarantee that a product and/or company has followed a quality process.

The time between initiation of the acquisition of the goods and services up to the time of delivery.

An essential component of context analysis, collecting information that will be useful to program the intervention and how to implement it.

Activities and means to identify suppliers in a specific market.

Procedure without prior publication of a procurement notice, in which the Contracting Authority consults the candidate or candidates of its choice and negotiates the terms of the contract with one or more of them.

The process of identifying and obtaining goods and services

The specific function associated with the actual buying of goods and services from suppliers.

Short for “Quality Assurance”; A procedure to ensure the quality of products or services by preventing mistakes and defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering products or services to beneficiaries.

Short for “Quality Control”; checks to ensure quality in a product or a service.

All the elements and characteristics which constitute the product and which contribute to its compliance with the defined technical specifications.

Identifying and working with appropriate suppliers.

Intellectual and non-intellectual services.

Principle by which must have more than one person to complete a procurement activity.

Short for “Total Cost of Ownership”; Cost involved in buying and using a product over time.

The overall process of putting a contract out for tender, starting with the publication of a procurement notice and ending with the award of the tendered contract.

The design and/or the execution of a rehabilitation, construction, etc. in accordance with the previously specified requirements.