I. Background

Pakistan experienced heavy monsoon rains, riverine, urban and flash flooding between June and September 2022, which displaced around 33 million people. As a result, Sindh has been disproportionately impacted by this event, causing severe social, economic, and structural damages and losses throughout the province, especially affecting the vulnerable groups, including women, disables, elderly and children. Over 12 million people have been affected, with more than 2.1 million houses damaged and 70% of the province submerged in the aftermath of the catastrophic flood.^[1]

The housing sector in Sindh particularly has been severely affected by the floods. To address this, the Government of Sindh (GoS) has launched a housing reconstruction programme to support households damaged by the 2022 floods. Under this initiative, the GoS is implementing a US$500 million World Bank-supported Sindh Flood Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project (SFEHRP).^[2] A dedicated Section 42 company – the “Sindh Peoples Housing for Flood Affectees (SPHF)” has been established for the design and execution of this housing reconstruction program, and to serve as the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) for the project. ^[3] The objective of SFEHRP is to deliver beneficiary‐driven, multi‐hazard resilient reconstruction of core housing units affected by the 2022 floods in selected districts of Sindh.

The major component of the project is the Housing Reconstruction Grants, which supports the provision of Housing Reconstruction Grants to Beneficiaries for owner-driven reconstruction and/or restoration of a core housing unit according to the multi‐hazard resilient guidelines of the SPHF. To facilitate community-level outreach and engagements for the reconstruction of the houses, SPHF has partnered with five local NGOs as Implementation Partners (IPs) with strong and existing outreach and a proven track record of delivering disaster reconstruction programmes. The IPs are responsible for validation of affected households, continuous monitoring of on-field activities, guiding the beneficiaries in construction works, and carrying out milestone certifications as per duly approved technical guidelines.

The project is in line with the World Bank’s “Build Back Better” approach, as highlighted in Priority 4 of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted in 2015, reconstruction offers an opportunity to build more resilient societies. It also presents the opportunity to leverage technology and innovation to streamline delivery and efficiency. In that spirit, the project has established a state-of-the-art geo-enabled Management Information System (MIS) to systematically collect, analyze, and monitor every aspect of project implementation, including damage re-verification, case review and evaluation, detailed beneficiary level information, and fiduciary information.

Building on this foundation, the project is exploring the piloting of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or drone technology for remote supervision and leveraging innovative tools such as drone mapping. This pilot aims to demonstrate the potential for scaling up drone applications across the entire project to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and delivery in reconstruction efforts. Drones can significantly improve cost efficiency, quality, safety, and time savings in construction projects, enabling wide-scale spot-checks with limited human resource requirements.[4] Moreover, drone imagery offers substantial advantages for mapping in areas where access to recent or affordable satellite imagery is limited. Compared to open-source satellite imagery, drone imagery provides much higher spatial and temporal resolution and accuracy for automated monitoring and evaluation analytics, making it a valuable tool for monitoring and decision-making in reconstruction efforts.

II. Objective

The primary objective of this consultancy is to demonstrate the use of drone technology for automated detection of housing reconstruction progress in selected settlements, supporting the Bank team's monitoring and evaluation efforts.

Specific objectives of this assignment include:

 Demonstrate the use of drone technology for monitoring housing reconstruction and WASH facilities progress: To collect and analysis high-resolution drone-based orthophoto and digital elevation model to monitor the progress of building construction and associated facilities under the project across selected housing settlements with low, medium and high density.

 Adopt and enhance open-source AI-Based models to automate drone image analysis for monitoring and analysis: To adopt and enhance an existing open-source AI model through training, calibration and validation with project-specific or similar data to automatically identify and classify building construction progress and features. This will generate analytical outputs, including comparative analysis with ground-based monitoring undertaken by SPHF and Third-Party Verification to enhance monitoring efficiency and inform decision-making.

Training and capacity building to stakeholders: To organize training for government counterparts and project stakeholders to build their capacity to deploy drone technology for reconstruction progress monitoring. These sessions will focus on drone operations (planning, flying and pre-processing), image analysis, and interpreting outputs to build local capacity for independent utilization of drones for reconstruction monitoring.

Disseminating findings of the Pilot: A comprehensive report summarizing the outcomes (including a comparative analysis of drone and ground-based monitoring), lessons learned, and recommendations from the assignment will be developed. The findings will be presented in a hybrid technical workshop for key stakeholders, including government counterparts, development partners, and technical experts.

III. Scope of Work:

Activity 1: Pilot Testing of Drone Technology for Monitoring Housing Reconstruction Progress

a)     Drone Data Collection and Pre-processing

Activity 2: Data Processing and Analysis

a) Image Processing and Analysis

Activity 3: Stakeholder Capacity Building

a) Training Sessions

b) Knowledge Sharing Workshops

Activity 4: Pilot Evaluation and Reporting

a) Final Report

SELECTION OF CONSULTING FIRMS BY THE WORLD BANK GROUP

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (EOI)

Electronic Submissions through WBGeProcure RFx Now

ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW

Assignment Title: Drone Technology Application for Implementation Monitoring for Housing Reconstruction

Assignment Countries:

• Pakistan

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTION

Scope of Work

Activity 1: Pilot Testing of Drone Technology for Monitoring Housing Reconstruction Progress:

a)     Drone Data Collection and Pre-processing:

•       Deploy UAVs to capture high-resolution orthophotos and elevation data for an average of 50 houses across 50 settlements at three-time intervals (50*50*3= 7500 houses mapped), ensuring coverage of all reconstruction progress stages: foundation, plinth, lintel, and roof.

•       The drone imagery should be captured at nadir and oblique angles, as well as sufficient altitude to enable detection of housing features, e.g. ventilation (doors and windows), universal access ( stairs, ramps and railing) and Plint elevation to ensure compliance to resilience standards.

•       Develop and implement data acquisition protocols to ensure accuracy, consistency, and compliance with regulatory requirements for UAV operations.

Activity 2: Data Processing and Analysis:

a)     Image Processing and Analysis:

•       Process UAV-captured imagery to generate orthophotos, 3D models, and detailed digital, dynamic and user-friendly maps that provide a visual record of housing reconstruction progress.

•       Utilize and enhance existing open-source AI/ML tools to identify, classify and quantify stages of construction, features and associated facilities to flag inconsistencies or delays in progress.

•       Develop an automated “plug and play’ workflow for monitoring construction progress at critical stages such as the foundation, plinth, lintel, and roof levels, and features detection. This will enable the upload of pre-processed drone images and automated analysis for timely identification of bottlenecks and a comprehensive assessment.

Activity 3: Stakeholder Capacity Building

a)     Training Sessions:

•       Design and deliver capacity-building programs for key stakeholders, with a focus on drone operations (planning, flying and data pre-processing), data processing, and analytical tools, preferably using open-source software.

•       Provide hands-on training sessions to stakeholders to apply the automated workflow for construction progress monitoring.

b)     Knowledge Sharing Workshops

•       Facilitate and organize (hybrid: virtual and in-person) workshops to share findings, and lessons.

Activity 4: Pilot Evaluation and Reporting

a)     Final Report:

•       Deliver a comprehensive report detailing the outcomes of the pilot, including evaluations of cost-effectiveness, operational feasibility, and scalability.

•       Provide actionable recommendations for scaling up UAV and satellite technology integration across the project and future initiatives.

•       Develop a set of guidelines and protocols for integrating UAV and satellite technologies into the project’s monitoring and evaluation systems, including recommendations for budgeting, procurement, and workflow optimization to facilitate smooth implementation.

FUNDING SOURCE

The World Bank Group intends to finance the assignment / services described below under the following:

• BB: Bank Budget
• TF0C3561: IMHRHS
• TF0C1760 : N-DEAP

ELIGIBILITY

Eligibility restrictions apply:

• Ony  firms in Pakistan or in partnership with firms in Pakistan are eligible to apply.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The World Bank Group invites eligible firms to indicate their interest in providing the services. Interested firms must provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services (brochures, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff, etc. for firms; CV and cover letter for individuals). Please note that the total size of all attachments should be less than 5MB. Firms may associate to enhance their qualifications unless otherwise stated in the solicitation documents. Where a group of firms associate to submit an EOI, they must indicate which is the lead firm. If shortlisted, the firm identified in the EOI as the lead firm will be invited to the request for proposal (RFP) phase.

Expressions of Interest should be submitted, in English, electronically through WBGeProcure RFx Now

NOTES

Following this invitation for EOI, a shortlist of qualified firms will be formally invited to submit proposals. Shortlisting and selection will be subject to the availability of funding.

Only those firms which have been shortlisted will be invited to participate in the RFP phase. No notification or debrief will be provided to firms which have not been shortlisted.

If you encounter technical difficulties while uploading documents, please send an e-mail to the Help Desk at corporateprocurement@worldbank.org prior to the submission deadline.