CAMEROUN/ The Brand PRIDESOFT Crowns Best at the 2021 AIPO Latest AWARDS Edition

As the first priority of the Cameroon Public Procurement Regulatory Agency, the greatest attention is paid to the amelioration of governance and good performance of the Cameroonian public procurement system. And deeply rooted in technology innovation, the Public Procurement Regulatory Agency is determined to make of digital transformation a modern tool for facilitation and surveillance of the system.

It’s in this vein that the Agency has designed and developed an integrated system of open and multiplatform management of public procurement called PRIDESOFT. Open to users all over the world, the platform PRIDESOFT offers in real time on a website format and mobile application, a free and unrestricted access to information on public procurement in Cameroon.

Concerned about the protection of its brand, the PPRA registered PRIDESOFT in 2018 at the African Intellectual Property Organization (AIPO) who organizes every other year an event named “Les awards de la marque OAPI” (the Awards of the AIPO Brand), which aims at promoting the strategic use of intellectual property by the enterprises of the 17 member States of the organization.

For the third edition of the event, the brands of 127 enterprises were in competition in three categories such as « the grand prize of the awards of the AIPO brand” which recompenses the enterprise of a member State whose brand has been highly distinctive and has experienced a growth by an innovation policy of its product or service; the “Regional brand prize” recompensing the enterprise that has its brand very remarkable and has been growing on the AIPO regional market through the operation of its products or services and to finish “the general public prize” reserved for the brand of a company or a country that is constantly present in the daily life of the local populations thanks to the quality of its products or services.

At the end of the deliberations by the international jury in charge of selecting candidates and during a Gala night for results’ proclamation in Douala on May 15, 2021, the brand PRIDESOFT of ARMP-Cameroon was crowned winner of the general public prize. This category of prize also takes into account the online vote by the users of the brand as the process is in two phases. The first is the preselection (and this time it was the preselection of 11 nominees among 127 brands) and the second phase is the selection of the winner by online vote by the users and consumers of the brand.

Receiving the awards, a trophy and a certificate actually, the Director General of ARMP-Cameroon, Mr. Joseph NGO thanked his collaborators for the hard work rewarded by the prize. For him the prize comes to reveal the engagement of the entire team reaching the objectives targeted by the Agency.

The awards ceremony is to bring awareness to the interest of the brand as a tool for commercial competitiveness and encourage its protection by enterprises and, inter alia, encourage them to compete. And it’s also to challenge brands created, protected and operated in Africa primarily and offer the opportunity to enterprises to value their know-how in the use of the brand as an intangible strategic asset. Being organized every other year, this event takes place in one of the countries of 17 member States of AIPO. The first edition was in Senegal and the second in Côte d’Ivoire.

Félix EPOLE
Head of Cooperation Department
ARMP – CAMERO0N