Background
Social procurement has been identified as a promising opportunity for inclusive business operations by integrating social and environmental impact into supply chains while unlocking finance for impact-suppliers.[1] In 2025, ESCAP, in partnership with Yunus Thailand, carried out a participatory research process to better understand the landscape of social procurement in Thailand’s agrifood value chains. Building on earlier exchanges with leaders from the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, Office of Social Enterprise Promotion, UN Women and Thai Airways, the hospitality and food sector has emerged as a leading space for integrating social and environmental impact into everyday operations.
Objective
The overall objective of this dialogue is to enable a space to exchange experiences and ideas on key ingredients for growing a social procurement movement, taking hospitality and food value chains in Bangkok as a starting point.[2] As such, it aims to:
Unlock short- and medium-term momentum beyond policy dialogue.
Share real-world experiences on cases and reasons for success and failure.
Identify convergence points to align roles, resources, and influence.
Catalyze pilot collaboration pathways with scaling potential.
Target Participants
Target participants include leadership representatives of the following stakeholder groups. Given space limitations, the session is by invitation only.
National and local government organizations.
Bangkok-based leaders from hospitality, event-planning, and food businesses who can help steer decisions on procurement policies or practices, including indirect procurement.[3]
Bangkok-based civil society, support organizations, finance providers, and communicators with a strong social-impact mission with reach to social enterprises, community enterprises, or other impact-driven providers of goods and services relevant to value chains in hospitality and food.
Social entrepreneurs and community-based organizations relevant for hospitality and food value chains.
[1] Social procurement is broadly defined as the practice of sourcing products and services from impact-driven suppliers including social enterprises, community enterprises, inclusive businesses, and other impact-driven organizations.
[2] The 2025 Top 100 City Destinations Index by Euromonitor International ranks Bangkok as the world’s most visited city by international travellers, with 30.3 million arrivals.
[3] The procurement of products and services that are not directly related to manufacturing but rather enable maintaining or developing organizational operations. Examples of indirect spending include corporate gifts, uniforms, waste management services, and catering products or services social impact.