Request For UN-ILO
Request For RFP for Business Partnership in in Herat Province
- Project Background
Herat Province, Afghanistan, which was already facing severe socio-economic challenges, faced severe setbacks resulting from the October 2023 earthquakes. The powerful earthquakes and aftershocks killed about 1,500 people, affecting 154,000 people, destroying more than 50,000 homes, injuring thousands, and destroying and/or damaging infrastructure. Survivors and affected communities have been left reeling from the loss of lives and livelihoods, with the scale of destruction leaving many in a difficult situation to cope and recover. The earthquakes have exacerbated the already dire humanitarian situation in the country, including the political and economic crisis, widespread poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, displacement, and human rights violations. The most vulnerable groups, such as women, children, youth, and persons with disabilities are at risk of further marginalization and exclusion. Before the earthquake, the ILO had estimated that in the fourth quarter of 2022, employment would be 450,000 lower than before the transition and more than 900,000 lower compared to a hypothetical scenario without a change in administration. In the aftermath of the earthquake, it is reasonable to expect that the number of the unemployed has significantly increased due to the destruction of businesses, enterprises, and agro-based livelihoods.
The humanitarian response to the earthquakes was swift with UN agencies, WB, ADB, INGOs and partners providing life-saving assistance to the affected populations. However, access to some of the most affected areas and basic services has been hampered by damaged infrastructure including buildings. Many livelihoods have also been affected, owing to loss of income and property. There is therefore an urgent need to support longer-term recovery and reconstruction efforts that can restore the functionality of basic services and infrastructure, create decent jobs and income opportunities for the survivors, and build the communities’ resilience and social cohesion. This is validated by the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) conducted to
assess the full extent of the damage, destruction, and human impact across all major sectors and Housing and Building Damage Assessment (HBDA) which considered it imperative to timely lay the foundations for early recovery, to build back better, and help people resume their disrupted lives to complement the humanitarian response.
Building on the PDNA and HBDA, sister agencies (UNDP, ILO, UN HABITAT, IOM, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNOPS, FAO, UNIDO and UNODC) have come together to support the Post Earthquake Recovery and Reconstruction Delivering as One (DaO) initiative through funding of the Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan. As part of the DaO, the ILO is proposing to implement Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) integrated with Enterprise Development to address the infrastructure, employment and livelihoods needs of the earthquake-affected communities in Kushk district of Herat province in Western Afghanistan.
- Objective of the Initiative
The objective of this initiative is: Local private sector development through technical and financial support to informal and formal businesses, including assisting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to access and/or expand to new market areas, support to local traders, to women-led businesses and community- led social enterprises.
The project will support existing micro, small and medium enterprises in the sectors which has high potential of job creation for Women and vulnerable group.
- Eligibility Criteria:
Applicants must:
- Be formally registered.
- Operate in Herat Province.
- Be women-led/owned or demonstrate inclusion of women in business operations (strongly encouraged).
- Propose activities that benefit earthquake-affected communities directly (through employment and services) or indirectly (through market linkages or skills transfer).
- Demonstrate basic business capacity (technical and financial) to implement the proposed activity.
- Financial Support:
Maximum financial support per entity is USD 4,000.
- Proposal Requirements:
Applicants must submit:
- A completed proposal (provided).
- A completed budget sheet (provided).
- A brief description of the business, proposed intervention, expected results, and how it supports earthquake-affected households.
Based on the above, EIIP-ED now invites interested businesses with innovative ideas and strategies to address any of the above-mentioned interventions to come up with business proposal clearly indicating the current situation and future/planned situation outlining the strategy and contribution of business themselves.
Please submit completed proposal including the budget sheet to TENDERS.AF@ilo.org The project will receive proposals on a rolling basis and the initial Deadline for receipt of proposals is 14 May 2025.
The Subject line of email should be: MSME/Herat/2025
The proposal template and budget sheet are attached with the RFP.
Note: The project is only accepting/receiving proposals in soft form. Written in English only using the template provided and submitted through mentioned email addresses. The proposals will go through several reviews and project team will conduct field visit and monitoring visits of the short-listed businesses prior to final selection. The selected businesses will be expected to pitch their proposal before a panel of experts.