INVITING EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO JOIN OXFAM IN LEBANON ROSTER OF PARTNERS – AGRICULTURE AND LIVELIHOODS PARTNERS

INVITING EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO JOIN OXFAM IN LEBANON ROSTER OF PARTNERS – AGRICULTURE AND LIVELIHOODS PARTNERS

Note: If you are already part of Oxfam in Lebanon’s roster of partner, a current pre-assessed Oxfam partner, or an active Oxfam partner, please do not apply again to this call.

1. BACKGROUND

Oxfam is an international confederation of 17 organizations (affiliates) networked together in 94 countries, as part of a global movement for change. Oxfam’s vision is a just world without poverty: a world where people can influence decisions that affect their lives, enjoy their rights, and assume their responsibilities as full citizens of a world where all human beings are valued and treated equally. Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993. Oxfam provides humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by crises and promotes economic justice, good governance, and women’s rights.

In the context of Lebanon’s protracted economic crisis, recurrent shocks and conflict, and increasing humanitarian needs, Oxfam and partners’ role in delivering timely and effective agriculture and livelihoods interventions has become increasingly critical.

Oxfam in Lebanon envisions that marginalized women, men, and gender non-conforming individuals (of all nationalities and statuses) are protected and empowered to enjoy their basic rights and access services enabling them to live in dignity within a more equitable society.

In the current emergency context, this includes ensuring access to life-saving agriculture and livelihoods services, such as direct assistance to farmers in affected areas, livestock support, and veterinary services.

To realize this vision, Oxfam in Lebanon will:

• Place gender justice and respect for diversity central to its programs.
• Strengthen emergency preparedness and rapid response capacity to address urgent humanitarian needs.
• Support empowerment, strengthen the voice, and promote collective action of individuals and communities living in poverty.
• Convene and facilitate engagement of civil society actors and decision-makers at all levels, from local to global, promoting dialogue, access to information, and transparency.
• Expand crisis analysis to better understand evolving protection risks, inequalities, and vulnerabilities in rapidly changing contexts.
• Reinforce livelihoods policy and advocacy efforts together with partners and relevant local actors.

The ‘one programme’ approach and triple mandate of humanitarian, development, and
advocacy work of Oxfam is the greatest added value in the Lebanon context. Oxfam demonstrates an ability to straddle both humanitarian and developmental needs to provide comprehensive analysis around key themes keeping Gender and Women’s rights at the core of its focus as an integral part of its identity. This integrated approach enables Oxfam to respond to immediate humanitarian needs while addressing longer-term structural drivers of vulnerability. Most importantly, its partnership approach and commitments at the World Humanitarian Summit and through the Charter for Change to support and promote the localization of response and aid places Oxfam as one of the lead voices in ensuring local partners are part of decision-making processes relevant to the national and international response. By recognizing its primary role in Lebanon as a ‘convenor’, Oxfam makes strategic choices around how to engage to shape change from the local to global.

2. PURPOSE

As part of its Country Strategy, Oxfam focuses on partnering with a wide spectrum of allies.

In line with emergency preparedness and response priorities, those partnerships target local structures, specialized service providers, think tanks and Local and National NGOs.

Oxfam in Lebanon’s partnership roadmap streamlines, guides, and facilitates uniformity in the application of the different partnership cycle stages and suggests contextualized approaches to partnerships outside traditional sub-granting schemes.

Oxfam in Lebanon is opening this call for Expression of Interest (EOI) to add to its roster of partners a number of partners experts in the field of Economic Development, Agriculture and Livelihoods, and are willing to work together with Oxfam. This roster aims to ensure the availability of pre-identified, capable partners who can be rapidly engaged in response to sudden-onset emergencies or escalating crises, and who can also work on long-term projects around Economic Recovery, Business Development Services, TVET and Work-based Learning, technical and financial support to enterprises, economic governance, and coordination with national actors and relevant sectors.

This process will allow adequate time and efforts to be invested in deepening the understanding of the strategic fit and the added value of potential partnerships outside of project-specific goals. Thus, adopting a transparent and merit-based selection process of partnerships - not just at a current fit but with an aim that the relationship would go the distance.

Accordingly, Oxfam is looking for local Non-Governmental Organizations (registered) working in agriculture and/or livelihoods across Lebanon, that would be willing to walk the journey and work together with its teams to achieve a common vision in Lebanon - with demonstrated capacity to operate in emergency, economic recovery, and development contexts, scale up interventions rapidly, and deliver agriculture and livelihoods services.

If you think you are the organization Oxfam in Lebanon should be working with under agriculture and/or livelihoods, the expectation is that you are able to fulfil the following:

1. Required: Local Experience, presence, and community relations: You work directly in communities in one or more of the Nine Governorates in Lebanon - established team, well-accepted by the community and good relations and networks with key actors and stakeholders (weight: 10%)

2. Required: Management Ability: Your organization has a properly constituted governance and structure and management ability that supports the implementation of programs and enables rapid decision-making and operational flexibility during emergencies (weight: 10%).

3. Mandate/Areas of Focus: Your organization focuses on ensuring the livelihoods of the most vulnerable and marginalized people through the following interventions. The expectation is that a weight of 45% of the score is assigned to organisations able to fulfil 3 out of the 5 required qualifications below:

• Required: Capacity to conduct rapid needs assessment of agriculture, livelihoods and market disruptions across conflict-affected and displacement-hosting districts to inform evidence-based decision-making through the assessment of damages, losses, and urgent needs.
• Required: Provision of emergency support to farmers and productive entities in affected areas, including emergency in-kind support and/or grants to farmers, businesses, MSMEs, cooperatives, and productive entities severely disrupted by the crisis.
• Required: Implementation of short-term employment opportunities (Cash-for-Work/CfW) targeting conflict-affected workers, with priority given to women, women-headed households, and persons with disabilities for whom CfW represents one of the few safe and accessible income opportunities during crisis.
• Required: Delivery of basic training to farmers on climate-resilient agriculture, water management, and pest control, as well as Business Development Support (BDS) on business continuity planning, access to markets, and linkages to relevant supply chains to help affected entities resume operations and reconnect with available market opportunities in hosting and return areas.
• Required: Embedding of fair labour standards, occupational safety, and equitable working conditions within supported enterprises, cooperatives, value chains, and Cash-for-Work modalities, ensuring that crisis response does not normalize or entrench precarious, informal, or exploitative employment. This includes targeted business development support to help productive entities adopt and sustain decent work practices, with particular attention to women workers, youth, and displaced populations who face heightened risks of labour exploitation in crisis contexts.
• Desirable: Cross-sectoral coordination with Food Security and Agriculture, Livelihoods, Social Stability, Cash, and Shelter sectors to align interventions with broader emergency response objectives, avoid duplication, and ensure productive entity support complements cash and in-kind assistance to households.
• Desirable: Facilitation of inclusive and risk-appropriate financial access for crisis-affected farmers, cooperatives, MSMEs, and productive entities, including through the identification and brokering of linkages to ethical financial institutions, guarantee mechanisms, and blended finance instruments suited to the Lebanon context. Interventions must be sequenced to avoid accelerating over-indebtedness among vulnerable households and must be accompanied by financial literacy and client protection components. Priority will be given to mechanisms that support women-led enterprises, cooperatives, and productive entities adopting sustainable or employment-generating models, with particular attention to the debt dynamics facing women-headed households and displaced populations for whom credit exclusion compounds economic marginalization.
• Desirable: Integration of water management, renewable energy solutions, and food production and processing systems as an interconnected operational framework guiding agricultural and livelihood interventions. This includes supporting the rehabilitation and adaptation of irrigation infrastructure, promoting energy-efficient and solar-powered solutions to reduce production costs, and facilitating circular approaches such as water reuse, waste valorisation, and sustainable input management. Interventions must address the compounded impact of war-related infrastructure damage on water access and energy availability for farmers and productive entities, with a view to reducing structural dependency on fragile public service systems and strengthening the long-term climate resilience and viability of supported agricultural livelihoods and enterprises.

4. Required: Experience Working with INGOs and/or L/NNGOs and/or donors: Your organization has proven experience working with partners (whether a donor agency, INGO, and L/NNGO), and its work is consistent with humanitarian principles and standards (such as Sphere standards and Core Humanitarian Standards CHS), Do No Harm and Conflict-Sensitivity Principles, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent code of conduct (weight: 10%).

5. Required: Adequate geographical coverage, logistical capacity, and equipped human resources to deploy rapidly to affected areas, with proven emergency response capacity and the ability to mobilize resources swiftly to contribute to emergency responses (weight: 10%).

6. Desirable: Information Management Systems: Access to and use of RIMS and RAIS, enabling timely, safe, and confidential referrals, as well as effective case tracking and coordination in line with data protection principles (weight: 5%).

7. Desirable: Capacity for timely, accurate, and high-quality reporting on ActivityInfo and other required platforms, ensuring compliance with donor and coordination requirements (weight: 5%).

8. Desirable: Strong and consistent representation in coordination fora, including national Food Security and Agriculture, Cash and Livelihoods Sector coordination meetings, and, where applicable, Operational Coordination Groups (OCGs) at the sub-national level (weight: 5%).

1. APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

If you think you are able to fulfil the above-listed expectations, Oxfam invites you to complete the Application Form_Agriculture and Livelihoods Partners EoI_Annex 1 and submit it to the following email address partnershipOiL@oxfam.org.uk no later than 31 May 2026 with the email subject line “Oxfam in Lebanon Agriculture and Livelihoods Partnership EOI”.

We regret that we are not able to provide feedback to every organization, except those short-listed. You will receive an email if you are one of them.