Establishment of an African Procurement and Supply Chain Observatory for Public Health and R&D Reagents and Laboratory Supplies

This request for proposals seeks partners to establish a neutral, interoperable African Procurement and Supply Chain Observatory to improve market transparency, demand consolidation, and coordination for public health and R&D reagents and laboratory supplies, with pathogen genomics as a pilot use case. Partners will be selected for two roles: Option A — a Platform Hosting Institution to lead governance. The Observatory is intended as an Africa-anchored public good to aggregate demand signals, enhance supplier and price visibility, and reduce lead times and stock-outs. The Gates Foundation will fund implementation of the Observatory under the African R&D Procurement and Supply Chain Initiative.

Grant funding to implement the Observatory; roles include governance leadership (Platform Hosting Institution) and technical architecture/systems integration support.

Applications were by invitation only. Partners will be selected for two roles: Option A — Platform Hosting Institution; Option B — Technical Architecture and Systems Integration partner or consortium.

By invitation only; a dedicated webinar was held for prospective applicants and application instructions were provided in a downloadable RFP document.