Promoting gender equality through public procurement

Gender-responsive procurement involves using public procurement opportunities to advance promote gender equality. Mainstreaming gender considerations in public procurement is a key dimension of strategic procurement in which public buying power is harnessed to advance public priorities to improve the well-being of society as a whole. This paper presents how governments and public buyers can use their purchasing power to promote gender equality and encourage suppliers to improve their performance on women’s empowerment. It explores the different ways that gender considerations can be integrated into public procurement policies and processes, and discusses the challenges that both policy makers and procurement practitioners face in promoting gender equality through public procurement.