Enabling Open Access Technical Knowledge for All
From the very beginning of our platform’s development, Solvoz has been driven by a commitment to promoting greater knowledge-sharing and collaborative learning opportunities within our sector. In fact, one of our primary objectives is to ensure that all organisations have access to the invaluable knowledge that they need to procure as effectively and responsibly as possible. Empowering organisations with key technical and contextual information as well as solution (i.e., products, kits, and services) specifications is fundamental to the realisation of this goal. This enables the procurement of solutions that align as appropriately as possible with the conditions of their operational contexts.
Similarly, the cultivation of a culture of proactive knowledge exchange should also be recognised as essential to the future success of our sector. Such promotion of wider information sharing would help to mitigate a currently prevalent duplication of work and resultant waste of finite resources.
This is why Solvoz’s solutions catalogue has been specifically designed to act as an open access knowledge directory. essentially providing the necessary infrastructure to collate and disseminate vital technical information and make it available to everyone, everywhere.
The current knowledge landscape
Throughout our collective experience in this sector, we have repeatedly observed an excess of spending on humanitarian procurement, far surpassing what is actually necessary.
Multiple factors contribute to this overspending, including a limited understanding of local markets and a lack of transparency in procurement processes. However, other contributing factors include the procurement of contextually inappropriate solutions and a frequent duplication of work by different NGOs, stemming from a lack of knowledge- sharing throughout our sector.
Humanitarian assistance requires technical and contextual expertise, which even when available, can often be unnecessarily difficult to access. For example, during the delivery of humanitarian support, individual organisations are continuously accumulating knowledge through their operational experiences in a given setting. This includes essential local and contextual expertise. All too often however, this invaluable information is not made adequately accessible to other potentially interested parties, whether they are different departments within the same organisation, or other agencies working in similar settings.
Consequently, vital expertise that could facilitate more effective and sustainable humanitarian responses is often fragmented and unavailable to individuals, teams and programmes responding to concurrent or subsequent crises. Likewise, critical technical information (e.g., comprehensive product specifications) is also frequently challenging to locate, or what is available omits key details, such as relevant sustainability criteria.
These obstacles to pertinent knowledge can hinder the assurance that procured solutions will meet the requirements of operational settings as well as the expectations of NGOs and their funders.
So how can we better support the dissemination of vital information within our sector?
To address these prevailing knowledge gaps, it is evident that a multifaceted and collaborative approach is required. In response to this, Solvoz has been developed as an essential tool and empowering professional network that actively facilities and promotes a culture of knowledge-sharing throughout our sector. This includes our platform serving as a comprehensive knowledge management framework that seamlessly integrates essential technical information and expertise from diverse sources and ensures accessibility to all who require it.
What Solvoz does and how it benefits our sector
Supported by The Solvoz Foundation, we have embedded an open access knowledge base within our solutions catalogue. This supports both the accumulation and dissemination of important technical and contextual information resources. These efforts are further reinforced by our network of sector experts and active working groups, who are continuously enriching Solvoz’s technical and contextual knowledge base.
Due to its open and freely available status, our solutions catalogue effectively democratises knowledge that is essential to the work and progress of our sector, ensuring its universal accessibility to all organisations worldwide. Importantly, this extends to smaller-scale NGOs and industry professionals that may have previously struggled to obtain such information.
The information offered by our knowledge directory includes a solution’s essential technical specification, sustainability criteria, underpinning guidance documents and any transport, distribution and storage requirements. Users are also empowered to search and review solutions based on relevant categories, use cases and specification criteria, including full life cycle and prerequisite analysis.
In embedding the importance of contextual and local information within our e-procurement platform, Solvoz facilitates the timely identification of solutions that meet a specific need in a specific setting, whilst also minimising the impact on the local environment and the wastage of valuable resources. Additionally, with enhanced access to reliable expertise, both organisations and donors can be assured that available funds are being used as effectively and efficiently as possible.
And Solvoz’s contribution to knowledge sharing doesn’t end there! We also regularly produce and publish new knowledge resources developed through our collaborative partnerships with a diverse range of agencies, all of whom are striving to develop more effective and sustainable humanitarian responses. For instance, in recent years, we have played a key role in developing a new sustainability framework and sustainability criteria for our sector. These resources have been adopted by organisations across the world to integrate sustainability principles directly into their procurement processes.
Join Solvoz in promoting Open Access Knowledge for all
Do you also believe that comprehensive, reliable and accurate technical information should be available to all NGOs, health agencies and social-impact organisations on a 24/7 basis? In engaging with, contributing to and evaluating our solutions catalogue, you can also play an active role in promoting an ethos of knowledge sharing within our sector. So why not start exploring and contributing to our catalogue today!
Let’s work together to bring all of this contextual expertise out into the open, and collaboratively produce open access knowledge that is available to everyone. If you would like further information on how your organisation can contribute to knowledge sharing within our sector then contact us today.