Background:
The Sexual and Reproductive Health in Emergencies in the Pacific (SRHiEP) programme aims to improve access to lifesaving sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for crisis-affected populations in all their diversity through implementation of the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for reproductive health in crises.
The SRHiEP programme was funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT), Government of New Zealand and is delivered in partnership between IPPF and its locally owned and led Member Associations (MAs) in New Zealand, Kiribati, Cook Islands and Tuvalu for a period of 6 years commencing Feb 2019 and ending on Sep 2025.
As the lead partner, IPPF – through its experienced Humanitarian teams in Suva and Kuala Lumpur –work in tandem with the MAs, providing capacity building and supportive supervision and enabling them to become leading national SRHR agencies in crises.
The overall budget of the SRHiEP programme was NZD 3.2M with a budget allocation of an approximate 70:30 ratio between the IPPF secretariat and IPPF 3 Member Associations implementing countries namely: Kiribati, Cook Islands and Tuvalu.
Qualified audit firms are invited to submit their combined technical and financial proposals for the audit of SRHiEP programme.
Scope of Work
Subject Matter: The financial report of the SRHiEP project for the period 1 Feb 2019 to 30 Sep 2025, prepared by IPPF for submission to MFAT. Hereinafter referred to as “Financial Statements”.
Audit: The auditors must conduct an audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (ISA 800 / 805 (Revised)) issued by the International and Assurance Standards Board on RESPOND Project’s financial statements. Those standards require that the auditors plan and perform the Audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement.
The audit shall be conducted to obtain evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditors' judgment, including assessing the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the Auditor considers internal control relevant to the entity's preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not to express an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity's internal control. Audits also include evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management and evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.
Mode of Audit: Entire audit will be conducted remotely for the IPPF Secretariat. The IPPF New Delhi office will coordinate the audit.
Audit Deliverables: The Auditors will submit the audit reports in English with PDF formats as under.
Audit Opinion: Audit opinion can be unqualified, qualified, adverse, or a disclaimer of opinion and should be formulated under the format of the Independent Auditor's Report for a Financial Audit suggested under the International Standards on Auditing issued by the International and Assurance Standards Board.
Management Letter: The Management Letter shall cover at least:
- the results of the audits performed, in terms of number and details of entities covered, audit coverage in terms of amount audited compared to the reported expenses, conclusions and costs disallowed,
- the nature, amount, and recurrence of the findings, their consequences and the costs categories affected due to the same.
- whether any serious irregularity or fraud has been discovered;
- whether any control gaps and risks identified, implications of the same and recommendations for improvement thereof;
The reports mentioned above should be prepared by the Auditor and submitted to IPPF in draft and final form as detailed below:
Draft reports: The Auditor must submit draft reports (audit opinion and management letter) to IPPF before issuing the final reports to validate the audit findings (i.e., to sort out potential risks, misunderstandings, additional information/documents to be provided, etc). Draft reports shall be submitted no later than 5 days after the end of fieldwork.
Final reports: It will have the same details as the draft report after removing resolved issues or findings and incorporating any comments received from the concerned parties on the draft report. The final report shall be provided latest within 3 days after the receipt of the comments on the draft report. The final report must be provided along with the invoice for the engagement.
Audit Proposal:
The tenderer (audit firm) will submit a detailed audit proposal covering the following:
- Audit Firm’s details including details of partners, no. of qualified staff, etc.,
- Location (City and Country) of the audit firm that will lead the engagement and sign the audit report,
- Citations of similar experience of executing project audits and not-for-profit sector audits,
- Approach and methodology for the audit,
- Anticipated risks / challenges and mitigation for successful completion of the audit,
- Audit Team Composition and CVs of key team members (Refer Section “Auditor Qualification”),
- At least two client references (email ids and phone numbers) for whom similar audits have been conducted,
- Scanned copy of the evidence of the firm being registered with the accounting body in the Country of its incorporation,
- A declaration by the proposed audit partner that the firm or any of its partners are not debarred from signing of audit opinions,
- Financial proposal in US Dollars along with estimated budget for out-of-pocket expenses and taxes.
- The financial proposal must include details of the entire team with expected time input of each team member along with their cost.
The length of the proposal including CVs, financial proposal, and other attachments must not exceed 15 pages (A4 sheets).
Submissions
The audit proposal must be submitted through email to [email protected] by 5:00pm GMT on 15th Sep 2025. Any proposal received after this date/time would not be considered. The subject of the email should clearly mention “Audit Proposal for SRHiEP Programme”.
The proposal must be submitted as a pdf document without any password protection in the email. Only one proposal must be submitted by an audit firm. If more than one proposal is received from the same firm, the one received later, but within the stipulated deadline for submission of the proposals, will be considered as final.
IPPF is entitled to reject one or all proposals. Only the shortlisted firm(s) will be invited for discussion and may be asked upon to make a presentation. Upon evaluation of the proposals and finalisation of the audit firm, a contract will be signed to engage the audit firm.
Audit Timelines
IPPF is expected to submit the financial statements along with the audit report to the donor as per its contractual obligations. Therefore, the audit should be started and completed within the following timelines:
Audit kick-off meeting: No later than 10th October 2025
Field audit:
Final Report submission: No later than 30th October 2025
Invoices and Payments
The invoice for the audit fee and any agreed upon out-of-pocket expenses will be raised after completion of the audit. This engagement will be a fixed fee contract.
