There has been no better time to do good. The number of violent conflicts, natural disasters and disease outbreaks is on the rise. People need help urgently. Many generous individuals, communities, and organisations worldwide have recognised this need and are ready to help! Contributions from private parties saw a 9% increase in 2019, reaching up to 6.8 billion USD. However, significant challenges arise when trying to turn well-intentioned acts of charity into real change on the ground. How do we provide the right resources to the right people at the right time?
Namma Mitra Foundation, headed by Dr Seema Sadhika, grappled with the same question at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in India. The organisation, working to empower rural communities, required medical supplies and technology such as oxygen concentrators to save as many lives as possible amidst a devastating wave of cases. Namma Mitra turned to Solvoz to help make a tangible impact.
What is Solvoz?
Solvoz is a platform for responsible humanitarian procurement. When goods and services are needed to provide urgent assistance to communities, Solvoz helps acquire them effectively and efficiently.
How do we do that, you ask? Well, we have two tricks up our sleeve. The first is the Solvoz Foundation, which maintains an open-access ‘solutions’ catalogue containing expert knowledge on goods and service requirements for specific contexts. After the identification of appropriate solutions from our catalogue, the foundation’s social enterprise counterpart, known as Solvoz, helps aid organisations in LMICs (Low and Middle-Income Countries) find local suppliers to procure the goods and services they have identified.
Making philanthropy efficient
Organisations like the Namma Mitra Foundation often face challenges that Solvoz helps alleviate.
Firstly, Solvoz provides pre-made packages for goods and services curated by experts and available free of cost. Morally, this is important as it ensures a fair distribution of knowledge. Organisations are not required to allocate scarce resources to hiring external consultants. Practically, it helps assist faster and ensures efficient use of donated resources. Namma Mitra could access the knowledge from our biomedical experts to find appropriate prerequisites, components, and specifications.
Secondly, by connecting organisations to local suppliers, Solvoz helps establish long-term relationships in the community. This localisation makes future procurement easy and strengthens local economies, circulating resources within the community for sustainable change. For Namma Mitra, this meant that the rural areas they serve saw new business opportunities and improved self-sufficiency.
Finally, Solvoz’s auditing and documenting services make it much easier for organisations to maintain a systematic procurement record. This makes the process more transparent for both themselves and their donors. Free from complex procedures and paperwork, Namma Mitra could dedicate themselves to their work while improving accountability and trust between them and their partners in the long term.
Our work with Namma Mitra proved successful, as seen in our continued collaborations beyond the first call to help. We establish trust in our clients and donors by providing reliably good services time and again, and help organisations in LMICs and their donors establish similar relationships to continue doing life-saving work effectively and efficiently.
