INVITING EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO JOIN OXFAM IN LEBANON ROSTER OF PARTNERS – POTECTION PARTNERS

INVITING EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO JOIN OXFAM IN LEBANON ROSTER OF PARTNERS – POTECTION PARTNERS

Note: if you are already part of Oxfam in Lebanon’s roster of partners, 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 war, and increasing humanitarian needs, Oxfam and partners’ role in delivering timely and effective protection 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 protection services and mitigating heightened risks such as gender-based violence (GBV), protection concerns, and legal vulnerabilities.

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 protection 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 protection partners willing to work together with Oxfam. This roster aims to ensure the availability of pre-identified, capable protection partners who can be rapidly engaged in response to sudden-onset emergencies or escalating crises.

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 protection 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 contexts, scale up interventions rapidly, and deliver timely, life-saving protection services.

If you think you are the organization Oxfam in Lebanon should be working with under protection, the expectation is that you are able to fulfil the below:

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 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 protection of the most vulnerable and marginalized people through the following interventions. The expectation is that a weight of 40% of the score is assigned to organisations able to fulfil 3 out of the 5 required qualifications below:

• Required: Provision of case management (CM) services across multiple protection subsectors, including General Protection and GBV case management. Applicants should demonstrate proven experience in delivering these services through a holistic and integrated approach across diverse population groups, ensuring full adherence to Age, Gender, and Diversity (AGD) principles. Applicants must also demonstrate the capacity to deliver case management intervention in line with national SOPs, established best practices, and appropriate staffing standards.
• Required: Provision of comprehensive legal aid services, including legal awareness sessions, legal counselling, legal assistance, and legal representation, delivered through qualified staff.
• Required: Implementation of MHPSS interventions, including Community Based Psychosocial Support (CBPSS), tailored to identified needs and integrated within broader protection responses, and delivered through trained and qualified staff.
• Required: Delivery of Cash for Protection assistance, including Emergency Cash Assistance (ECA) and Regular Protection Cash Assistance (RPCA), implemented in close linkage with other protection interventions and in alignment with Cash for Protection guidance, to ensure protection aligned outcomes.
• Required: Demonstrated capacity to establish and maintain a strong technical staffing structure, ensuring adequate supervision and oversight to uphold appropriate caseworker-to-survivor ratios, with regular monitoring of caseloads based on case complexity and risk level. This includes provision of continuous training, supervision, and capacity-building for both case workers and supervisors to ensure quality service delivery.
• Desirable: Capacity to conduct protection monitoring and analysis to capture evolving protection risks and trends, inform programmatic decision making, and support adaptive and responsive protection programming.
• Desirable: Capacity to advance the protection advocacy agenda using evidence-based data.
• Desirable: Engagement in community-based protection approaches, underpinned by a strong and established network of community structures - including community groups, community volunteers, and community focal points - to facilitate community consultations, community risk analysis, and community action planning, as well as outreach, identification, referrals, and the implementation of community-led protection initiatives.

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 Protection Sector meetings, sub national Integrated Protection Working Groups, and, where applicable, Operational Coordination Groups (OCGs) at sub national level (weight: 5%).
9. Desirable: Exposure to cross-sectoral interventions/programming such as WASH, livelihood, health/SRHR, etc. (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_Protection 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 Protection 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.