Your opportunity to take part in a DfID procurement and poverty project

13th November 2007

If you are potentially interested in this project, we would be very appreciative if you could get in touch as soon as possible with John Forster at john@jfassociates.org

EAUC has been successful in the concept stage of a bid to the Department for International Development (DFID) for an exciting project on sustainable procurement and poverty awareness to run for 24 months from 1 April 2008. The next stage is for EAUC to submit a final bid which is due in by 30 November.

The purposed of the project is "to increase universities' and colleges'
awareness of the impact of their procurement activities on developing regions and on poverty in particular. It is intended that this awareness will lead to changes in their procurement behaviour and their procurement systems and have knock-on effects on the understanding, behaviour and systems of the whole sector and its suppliers".

The initial focus of this work will be northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and we now want to recruit 16 volunteer FHE institutions from this area to commit to take part in the project Partner institutions would, in conjunction with the overall project co-ordinator:

• Identify an appropriate product or group of products which they use that originate in developing countries and have poverty implications:

• Undertake desk research to collate information to gain an understanding of the impacts (positive and negative) of the growing, supply and processing of this product on the livelihoods of the poor

• Help disseminate the outcomes of this work to the sector and suppliers

• Advise on how procurement processes could be adjusted to take account of the findings of the work

The project envisages that a small amount of funding (approximately £1000 per institution) would be available to enable each institution to employ a student to work with a staff member on the desk research.

If you are potentially interested, we would be very appreciative if you could get in touch as soon as possible with John Forster (see address below) who is working this project up on behalf of EAUC and who would be happy to discuss this with you in more detail. We would then send you the copy of the Concept note - giving further detail of the project, a very short form to complete and the draft of a letter for you to sign that would indicate your interest and commitment.

We hope if possible to have identified the 16 institutions to be associated with the project by 20 November - so there is not much time.

Note that we have some way to go before knowing whether this project can go ahead - so we don't want to raise your expectations too much!

Contact details for John Forster:

John Forster Associates
Consulting in Sustainability
Dalsack, Finzean
Aberdeenshire AB31 6ND
Phone: 01330 850555 E-mail: john@jfassociates.org