The flood experience coupled with five years of work as a global portfolio manager for a company providing mosquito nets to the developing world, convinced El Mahi that technology could create a better way to bring humanitarian agencies together with suppliers of goods and services. This led El Mahi to found Relief Avenue (www.reliefavenue.com), a UAE-based social enterprise and the world’s first sourcing and procurement portal for the Humanitarian Sector. El Mahi believes that Relief Avenue will dramatically change the way disaster procurement is done by leveraging the power of the Internet and ecommerce tactics to the benefit of disaster victims. The Relief Avenue portal will help aid agencies find suppliers of the right products or services, in the right locations, at the right times and for the right prices, with the noble goal of saving lives.
“In disasters, even very large humanitarian organizations such as the UN, prioritize sourcing from local suppliers to save money and time, as well as to pump as much money as possible into the local economy. There is an issue though in that it can be very difficult to source locally, as often details such as the quality and price of local goods and services aren’t readily available,” El Mahi said. “This lack of information often leads to distorted transactions. In other words, the aid agencies don’t really know what’s the most cost effective option since they can’t compare proper alternatives and often they can’t even find local or nearby reputable sources. This leads to a lot of time and money being wasted in the procurement process.”
El Mahi explained that in general, humanitarian organizations aren’t really structured to deal with the commercial sector in terms of procurement, logistics, negotiation, etc. They are more about saving lives, running programs, serving their communities and raising awareness. Since aid organizations may have limited interactions with local business communities, companies may not even know how to reach out to them if a business does have products or services available for sale in a disaster. Ecommerce is a way to bring both the Humanitarian and Commercial Sectors together.
“Ecommerce isn’t new anymore,” El Mahi remarked. “Companies are familiar with ecommerce platforms and we will actively introduce the concept to humanitarian organizations, large and small. The idea is for the suppliers and the aid agencies to register in advance and Relief Avenue will use several different methods to verify the registration information. Once a company is verified, that business can catalog full details of available products and services in the store or eAvenue on the site. Additionally, businesses can post stock liquidation details which may be attractive to organizations preparing for future disasters.”
The portal will not only list the obvious supplier types such as bottled water companies or pharmaceutical firms, but Relief Avenue will also be offering transportation suppliers and are currently negotiating with major regional logistics services to offer discounted prices. In the early days of Relief Avenue’s operations, buyers and suppliers will not complete transactions through the portal. Such a strategy has been taken because in the beginning that would require too much of a change for how aid agencies operate. Eventually though, fully online transactions will be enabled.
Verified humanitarian organizations can use Relief Avenue to find and compare suppliers by price, location, categories and products, all via the click of a button. There are three options for aid agencies to fulfill their requirements. They can search and browse the database, post a request for quotation (RFQ) or request a customized sourcing service. The aid agencies will also be able to rate the suppliers, incentivizing companies to provide good service.
El Mahi emphasized that humanitarian organizations would bear nothing of the costs incurred to locate and connect to the right supplier. The main source of funding will come from a commission taken from the awarded suppliers. Furthermore, Relief Avenue plans to start with a cause-related marketing program in which a share of the revenue of its portal will be donated back to organizations using the portal. The landing page for Relief Avenue is up and the website will become available in the first week of this month.
The response I’m getting so far is actually very impressive,” said El Mahi. “People really like the idea. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed success, but it’s a good start. In closing, I also want to add that a specific section of Relief Avenue is for companies or individuals who have developed breakthrough technologies that could save lives. I hope they will register at Relief Avenue and post the details of their inventions so that NGOs will have a way to learn about them, investigate them and possibly put the technologies to use in the field as needed.”
