Nutrition International (NI), formerly the Micronutrient Initiative, is a global nutrition organization, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.  It aims to transform the lives of people in vulnerable context, by improving their nutritional status.  Women, adolescent girls, and children are often the beneficiary groups as they often have the greatest unmet needs. Since 1992, NI has had proven success with the inclusion of more direct support for the design and scale-up of nutrition programs at country level.  This includes programming such as vitamin A supplementation and salt iodization, as well as in global advocacy, research and market shaping to address key micronutrient gaps.  NI continues to work in close partnership with governments, the private sector, international agencies, academia, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 

For 30 years Nutrition International has remained committed to its core vision: a world where everyone, everywhere, is free from malnutrition and able to reach their full potential. In that time, we have expanded our scope as well as our role, and outlined a bold vision for the next twelve years to 2030. Our Goal 2030 is to transform the lives of 1 billion vulnerable people, especially women, adolescent girls, and children, by improving their nutritional status. The potential to transform is closely linked to overcoming gender inequalities. NI believes that improving nutrition is critical to achieving gender equality, and that improving gender equality leads to improved nutrition. NI also fully acknowledges the duty of care to protect and promote the welfare of children and young people it encounters through our programs. In line with this commitment, NI expects that all staff, implementing partners, and consultants involved in the work of the organization will adhere to its Child Safeguarding Policy (see Annex E).

One of NI’s key strategic goals is to enhance the global impact of micronutrient interventions by generating cutting-edge knowledge and utilizing it to develop sound policies and programmes while consolidating political will to achieve its vision. NI aspires to position itself as a global center of excellence in generating scientific research in the field of micronutrient programmes. It provides quality assurance for research and programmes while disseminating and translating new knowledge to influence and improve national and global policies and programmes. NI provides guidance and support for existing and future programme evaluations and coordinates the analysis and utilization of evaluation activity results.  

Project Background

In Pakistan, the social protection programs offer an opportunity to develop and test approaches serving vulnerable population particularly the bottom two quintiles of poverty, by improving access to essential health and nutrition services. The Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) of the Government of Pakistan has recently launched an extended Nashonuma program, which aims to address anemia in adolescent girls by promoting WIFAS and nutrition education. They plan to do this by reaching out to adolescent girls and their mothers at BISP Nashonuma Facilitation Centres, embedded in health centres.

Nutrition International is supporting the project, Leveraging Pakistan’s Social Protection Programs for Adolescent Girls’ Nutrition (SOPRAN) funded by GIZ through BMGF which aims to leverage BISP for improving the nutrition situation of communities by providing Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFAS) to adolescent girls (AGs) in public schools and improving the nutrition related norms, values and practices of local communities. The goal is to empower adolescent girls who are recipients of the Taleemi Wazaif Program of the BISP to become agents of change by provision of WIFAS and enhancing their knowledge on adolescent nutrition to further transfer this knowledge to their families and peers. The program aims to create a supportive and enabling environment for an adolescent-led model and may become champions for adolescent nutrition. In the process, the project is engaging the local stakeholders such as officials of the concerned departments such as Department of Education, Department of Health, Local BISP officials etc. In order to complement the process of change, opportunities of accessing the fortified food through local flour chakkis will also be created by making fortified flour chakkis available in the target areas and promoting the use of this flour. The program is being implemented across the country in seven pilot districts in four provinces: Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and three regions including AJK, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB).

Request for Proposal

Nutrition International (NI), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving nutrition in all its forms, invites  proposals  from  competent  consultant(s)  or  agencies  to lead  on  youth  participatory research for the adolescent centred nutrition indicators (CAN-I) pilot in Pakistan.

Detailed RFP attached for reference