A. Background:

Founded in 1991, SIF is a French International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) dedicated to national and international solidarity. For over 30 years, SIF has been actively working in France and around the world, responding to humanitarian and social needs wherever they arise. With its headquarters in Massy, France, SIF operates in more than 20 countries globally either through direct interventions or through partners.
SIF’s vision is believing in a more just and caring world where the basic needs of vulnerable people are met. SIF draws legitimacy from a vision of humanity (women and men) as a whole, particularly in their vulnerable condition.

SIF’s mission is to reduce poverty and vulnerability in France and around the world, without proselytizing or discriminating. It upholds the principles of impartiality & universality, neutrality & independence, and responsibility and transparence. SIF intervenes where humanitarian and social needs demand it, providing emergency relief, implementing development programs, and conducting advocacy initiatives.

Since 2010, SIF has been actively working in Pakistan, transforming lives through interventions in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Food Security and Livelihoods, Child Welfare and Protection, Education, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change. Over the years, more than 1 million people have benefited from SIF’s initiatives across Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), and Rawalpindi and reached out to 33 districts through different interventions with direct implementation during flood and emergencies.

In 2024, SIF reaffirmed its commitment to humanitarian, development and resilience efforts by implementing 17 projects (9 donor-funded and 8 SIF-funded) across 706 villages in 24 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh, Balochistan and ICT. These initiatives impacted 106,285 beneficiaries, addressing critical needs through food security, livelihood support, disaster risk reduction, and WASH interventions. SIF provided food assistance to 6,968 households during Ramadan, Eid al-Adha, and emergency relief efforts, while 10,087 individuals benefited from cash-for-work and cash-for-training programs. Additionally, 4,140 people received vocational skills training and livelihood support to enhance economic self-sufficiency. SIF rehabilitated 4,880 disaster risk reduction (DRR) infrastructures and restored 270 WASH facilities, including water ponds and Chalo-1 systems, improving water access for 11,918 people. To strengthen education, 45 primary and middle schools received WASH and classroom rehabilitations, benefiting 14,343 students. Moreover, 392 individuals were trained in emergency response through Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). Through these impactful interventions, SIF continues to build resilience, sustainability, and improved living conditions for vulnerable communities across Pakistan.

Currently, SIF is operational through a country office in Islamabad, and has 3 provincial/base offices and 6 project/field offices with around 430 staff. Pakistan mission drafted a three-year country strategy for 2025 -2027 following the SIF Global strategic plan 2022-2027. Based on the strategic objectives, SIF formulated following program/ thematic areas:

SIF Strategic Objectives:
- Increase food-security and promote sustainable livelihoods among vulnerable and migrant populations.
- Enhance access to clean water and sanitation infrastructure through the implementation of sustainable WASH.
- Strengthen the resilience of disaster affected communities through climate change and disaster preparedness and management initiatives.
- Improve access to child well-being, protection and quality of education of targeted populations.
SIF Pakistan Mission thematic Areas and Core programs

Food Security and Livelihoods:
To enhancing food security involves providing communities with the means to secure reliable access to nutritious food. Through innovative programs, SIF Pakistan empowers households to overcome hunger and malnutrition, ensuring they have the resources and knowledge to build a sustainable food supply. SIF believes that economic stability is fundamental to well-being. In the realm of livelihoods, SIF strives to create opportunities for sustainable income generation, offering technical skill enhancement training and creating resources to help individuals and families become economically self-sufficient. Agriculture is the backbone of many Pakistani communities; SIF is deeply committed to strengthening agricultural practices, improving crop yields, and enhancing the overall agricultural value chain through empowering farmers with knowledge and resources to achieve sustainable agricultural success. SIF is dedicated to engaging in impactful interventions to enhance their well-being and resilience, particularly for people in need and living in disaster prone areas and under the poverty line. Our focus will remain on vulnerable populations, particularly those in remote areas, to improve access to nutritious food and comprehensive nutrition facilities.

Over the two decades, SIF reached to most vulnerable communities in all three provinces and in disasters including floods and displacement and provided much needed food assistance. SIF supported over 350,000 beneficiaries in flood response, drought and support to TDPs through food assistance. In addition, SIF has supported more than 50,000 families of vulnerable communities and Afghan Refugees in KP, Sindh, Balochistan and ICT/ Rawalpindi with food assistance through its seasonal project activities, and has provided short-term and sustainable livelihood to over 12,000 beneficiaries across Pakistan. SIF has completed 25 projects of WFP under livelihood and Food security component and facilitated to more than 1 million people through cash for work, food assistance and rehabilitation of different scheme.

Child Welfare, Protection and Education:
SIF’s work in education is focused on improving and rehabilitating school facilities, as well as incentivization of education for deprived children and orphans. SIF is currently implementing the School Meal Program in Quetta, providing cooked meals to 13,000 students daily, with plans to reach 20,000 students by 2025. SIF has reached 7,925 boys and girls with provision of education kits and recreational sessions in KP and 5,332 children in Sindh to improve enrollment in schools. Moreover, last year SIF has rehabilitated 45 primary schools in Quetta and Jamshoro, and is supporting 683 orphans to ensure the continuation of education through a sponsorship program in Tharparker, ICT and Rawalpindi. SIF is also enhancing the quality of education by providing teacher trainings and learning materials in schools. Additionally, SIF supports schools by distributing hygiene kits to targeted students. SIF ensures that raising awareness about child protection, health, hygiene, and proper use of WASH facilities contributes to higher student retention and improved academic performance.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH):
SIF Pakistan has been actively working to improve water access in both humanitarian and development settings through various interventions. These include rehabilitating water sources, installing hand pumps, emergency water trucking, hygiene promotion activities, rehabilitating sewerage systems, constructing waste management points, and sensitizing communities on safe waste disposal and management. Additionally, SIF has built rainwater harvesting ponds at both communal and household levels and developed sustainable models for improving water access and conservation. WASH is an integrated approach throughout SIF’s projects. To date, SIF has rehabilitated and constructed over 500 WASH facilities through various interventions. These facilities have primarily been developed in Tharparkar, Jamshoro, Quetta, and Lasbela.

Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR):
SIF is actively working on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation across its interventions. It strengthens community capacities to enhance resilience and ensures an effective response in flood-affected areas through rapid response initiatives and long-term mitigation schemes. SIF has trained Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) on Disaster Response, provided CERT kits, and rehabilitated various areas by constructing bridal paths, jeepable bridges, irrigation channels, Chahlo and Nadi ponds, protection walls, culverts, WASH facilities, shelters, and water ponds, while also conducting plantation drives. Collaborating with multi-donor organizations like World Food Programme, CDCS and UNHCR, SIF extends its interventions to provide immediate food assistance to disaster-affected communities and areas bordering Afghanistan through resilience building, emergency response, structural mitigation, cash, and food transfer programs in more than 33 districts of Pakistan. SIF Pakistan rehabilitated and built different mitigation scheme in more than 500 villages. These schemes are some bridal paths, gabion wall, raised platform, construction of roads, path-ways, culvert, check dams and protection wall and protection and water ponds etc. Similarly, in consortium with three international French organizations, SIF has implemented a CDCS-funded project on Disaster response, WASH, Livelihood, and MPHS in Quetta and Lasbela. Currently, SIF is implementing 2 projects in Mirpur Khas and Chitral/ Dir with the financial and technical support of WFP, facilitating more than 100,000 families through different interventions and cash based transferred component.

B. The purpose of this EOI:

As part of SIF’s strategic partnership development objectives 2025/2027, the SIF Pakistan mission is planning to identify new partners with whom we will be able to co-create and implement projects in areas of interventions outlined (titled in section A.) across the country. Through this EOI, SIF aims to build synergies with other local actors to explore innovative approaches, establish strong partnerships for the implementation of SIF-funded projects, and prepare for future donor submissions. In alignment with the localization agenda, SIF Pakistan also aims to build equitable partnerships which integrate the support of local NGOs in their capacity building.

Through a competitive pre-selection process, eligible organizations will be included in the SIF potential partner roster, and may collaborate with SIF. However, this does not guarantee the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), or formal collaboration with SIF.

SIF will acknowledge receipt of the submitted EOIs. EOI submissions will then be evaluated according to the documents submitted in compliance with the list requested, their compatibility with SIF’s mission, their consistency with SIF’s strategic partnership development objectives and eligibility criteria outlined in Section C. All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their submission.

The pre-selected NGOs will be further informed on the next steps, and undergo a capacity assessment.
Potential partner organizations may also be added to the roster for future collaboration if their profiles are of interest to SIF. These organizations will undergo an evaluation process when an opportunity arises.

SIF will analyze and evaluate the submitted documentation, and assess the organizations’ capacity. Based on the results of the evaluation, eligible NGOs will be notified to submit project proposals and budgets or collaborate with SIF staff in developing them, should collaboration opportunities become available.

C. Eligibility criteria of potential cooperating partners:

To be considered for selection, an organization must complete both the “screening sheet” and “information sheet”, and provide, at a minimum the required compulsory documents listed in sections F and the Annexes. Organizations sharing the documents from the “highly recommended” list will considerably increase their chances of pre-selection.
These documents are necessary to ensure the organization meets SIF’s prerequisites and passes the security clearance screening mandated by institutional donors.

Any application submitted without the completed sheets and the required compulsory documents will be considered incomplete and will not be evaluated.

Organizations must meet the following criteria:
 Be aligned with SIF’s vision and mission;
 Be actively working in the required thematic areas of SIF Pakistan (WASH, Food Security & Livelihoods, Promotion of Child Welfare and Education, Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR));
 Be registered in the country and have the authorization to operate in the relevant area(s) of intervention (relevant approval certificates should be provided along the information sheet);
 Be an active member of relevant thematic groups/ clusters/ networks;
 Have an operational presence in SIF Pakistan’s geographical intervention areas (Sindh, KP and Balochistan);
 Have at least 10 years institutional and technical experience implementing humanitarian, development and/or resilience programs benefitting the vulnerable local populations;
 Prior experience of donor funded projects.

D. Review Process and timeline:

The invitation for EOI will remain open to receive submissions until 25th March 2025 12:00 AM (midnight, Islamabad time). SIF will then assess the submitted documents and will pre-select potential partners based on the documents and information provided. The pre-selected potential local partners

will then be asked to participate and collaborate in the realization of an Organization Capacity Assessment for their final selection. All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their submissions by 25th April, 2025 via email.

E. How to prepare and submit your EOI:

Organizations that wish to participate in the invitation for EOI are requested to submit their application in English, addressed to the following emails:
- Ashfaq Ahmed MEAL Manager [email protected]
- And Feroza Zahra, Country programme Coordinator: [email protected]

With the subject heading: EOI_SIF_Pakistan name of organization,

Before or on 25rd March, 2025 12:00 PM (midnight, Islamabad time)

Interested organizations are requested to submit an EOI of maximum 4 pages along the required documents indicating their motivations to partner with SIF, demonstrating how they meet the selection criteria mentioned in section F, and how they align with the values and principles of SIF and its projects in Pakistan.
For further information or queries, please use the same email addresses mentioned above.
Please send all your questions before 15th March 2025.

Please note that this is not a call for Proposal. This invitation does not bind SIF to issue any agreement or contract to the organizations who express their interests.

F. Required documents as listed in the Annexed partner information sheet:

Below is the list of all documents that should be uploaded along with the EOI, completed screening sheet and information sheet by interested candidate organizations:

Compulsory
1) Legal status/bylaws of the organization
2) Proof of official registration of the organization in the country (with certificate of current validity)
Registration number, type of legal entity, registering authorities, date of registration
3) In the case of a potential operational partner: bank account information
4) Code of conduct & code of ethics
5) One or more recent and detailed reports on activities
6) Financial report(s)
7) Financial procedures
8) Purchasing procedures

Highly recommended
*Possibility of support from the SIF in the creation of certain documents
1) Copy of the current strategic plan
2) Ethical background (any information on previous issues)
3) Organogram
4) Governance Structure:
List of board members & Senior Management Team members with their responsibilities & occupation
5) HR policy/manual
6) Gender, protection & AAP policy
7) Child Safeguarding Policy
8) Protection against Sexual Exploitation & Abuse (PSEA) policy
9) Anti-fraud and anti-corruption Policy
10) Conflict of interest policy
11) Feedback & complaint mechanism
12) Beneficiary selection procedure
13) Environment protection (& impact evaluation) policy
14) Project management procedures/documents
15) MEAL policy
16) M&E manual
17) Security, safety and access policy /plan
18) List of past and current projects implemented (including donors/funding source, funding level, number of staff engaged, duration etc.)
19) Audit report(s) from most recent years
20) Procurement and logistics policy-fleet management procedure & inventory management procedure
21) Press review(s)
22) Any study/evaluation conducted
23) Recommendation letters or references from partners and fund providers
24) Any other document you feel will be useful in the process

List of Annexes:
Annex 1. Partner screening sheet
Annex 2. Partner information sheet