Background
Uganda is among 12 countries that have received a grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to pilot an integrated approach to Fostering Sustainability and resilience for Food Security in Sub Saharan Africa. The grant will support countries to integrate priorities that safeguard and maintain ecosystem services into investments improving smallholder agriculture and food value chains. The Uganda Child Project targets northern Uganda with special focus on Karamoja sub-region. Karamoja is located in the greater Northern region of Uganda that inhabits over six million people . The project shall cover 7 districts in Karamoja, with potential to cover additional 4 districts in Lango and Acholi sub-regions. The sub regions are characterized by semi-arid climate, with one long rain season and long dry spells, poor rainfall distribution and vulnerability to droughts.
The project will be developed within the context of the National Development Plan2 (NDP II) to promote and ensure the rational and sustainable utilization, development and effective management of environment and natural resources for socio-economic development of the country, promote a low carbon emission development path, promote the rehabilitation and conservation of forests and wetlands, implement the National Action Plan (NAP) to combat desertification under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and other relevant national policy and legal frameworks.
In order to address the main barriers to transforming the Karamoja sub-region into a sustainably self-sufficient food business, the project proposes the following approach:
- Establish multi-stakeholder platforms to support policy and institutional reforms necessary for upscaling integrated natural resources management;
- Establish policies / incentives that support smallholder agriculture and food value-chains at local level;
- Support expansion of land area, agro-ecosystems and investment flows under integrated natural resources management and SLM (including practices linked to GHG emission reduction -CSA);
- Develop a framework for multi-scale assessment, monitoring GEB and integration of resilience in production landscapes.
A Project Preparation Grant (PPG) has been approved by the GEF Secretariat to support development of a project document for submission under the Global Environmental Facility Phase 6, System of Transparent Allocation of Resources (GEF-6 STAR). In this context, an international expert is required to lead the design team for development of a project document relevant to achieve the outcomes outlined in the approved Project Identification Form (PIF).
Design and implementation of the project is led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) is the lead on the part of government. Other key Stakeholder groups include (but not limited to) Office of the Prime Minister, the National Forestry Authority (NFA), National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), National Agricultural research Organization (NARO), Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE); GEF-Small Grants Programme, Africa Innovations Center, ICRAF, Civil society and Private sector organizations in the project area.
Duties and Responsibilities
Scope of Work:
Objective
The overall aim of the project is to enhance long term environmental sustainability and resilience of food production systems to improve food security. It is hoped that this will be achieved through creating an enabling policy and institutional framework relevant for upscaling Integrated Natural Resources Management (NRM), providing incentives for smallholder agriculture and food value chains development, increasing land area and agro-ecosystems under integrated NRM and use carbon smart land use practices.
Scope of services
To facilitate access to the GEF funds following approval of the project identification framework (PIF), a full-size project document showing precisely how, where, what and how much; need to be developed and submitted to the GEF within the next twelve months. The project concept already contain some basic background and indicative information about baselines, however additional data is needed to explicitly design the projects in the most appropriate and cost-effective manner and to ensure that GEF support is provided only for 'incremental' activities.
Key considerations for project design include:
- Country project need to demonstrate how it will address environmental drivers of food security;
- Project should set realistic targets and timelines;
- The Program will have standard common indicators and data collection protocols for ease of aggregating child project results and reporting at regional program level. IFAD will develop criteria for countries to use in deciding on which tools to use, but countries will be at liberty to adapt to context;
- Although resilience is a key issue within the global development frameworks including SDGs, how to integrate it in programming including its measurement remains unclear. No single project can address all the aspects of resilience. Country project should therefore select one or two indicators to focus on;
- Knowledge management should be an integral part of project design and implementation.
The overall purpose of this consultancy therefore is the preparation of a UNDP/GEF compliant project document, which will involve a detailed analysis and assessment of the socio-economic status, the policy, legal and institutional frameworks necessary to ensure sustainable food value chains development, sustainable agro-ecosystems and natural resources management, and generation of global environmental benefits. This will be done by performing the following tasks:
Tasks and responsibilities:
Assessment of suitable monitoring and Assessment systems
Establish baselines on the status of the agro-ecosystems in the area including :
- Land area and agro-ecosystems (e.g. agro-pastoralist, agro-forestry) under integrated natural resources management and SLM i.e. establish baselines on land use and status of land management, including description of methods used in land use change and
- Ecosystems degradation (the trends in land use) in the target districts e.g. soil erosion and fodder coverage availability, size and state of degraded area, proportion of landscape that is deforested (particularly the high value trees lie Gum Arabic, Tamarind and Palm), and classify the degraded resources (land, water etc.) according to the degree of degradation so that appropriate actions can be planned to take care of ecosystem values, and long term resilience of the resource base;
- Describe baseline existing land degradation/SLM monitoring tools and make suggestions on how they can be integrated for use by the project;
- Identify main barriers for the effective introduction and/or use of monitoring of land degradation/SLM;
- Propose how to usefully combine suitable Land degradation/SLM monitoring and assessment tools as part of the project M&E framework;
- Define the global environmental benefits from land degradation and Biodiversity focal areas addressed by the PIF in this project area;
- Identify the sources of GHGs as a result of land use changes, estimation of the emissions and sinks in the project area;
- Complete the land degradation, biodiversity and climate change tracking tools in collaboration with other stakeholders, quantifying and detailing a presentation of the global environmental benefits of the project, including GHG emissions reductions and growth of carbon stocks if any;
- Develop tools for monitoring and assessing whether the integrated approaches to improving food security and natural resources management have any impact on resilience of ecosystems services, livelihoods and food security.
Project document definition:
The main elements of this component will be a detailed strategy, developed based on findings of the baseline work on i) policy, legal and institutional frameworks defining food security, sustainability and resilience development within the socio-economic status of the region; ii) pre-feasibility studies Scaling up integrated approaches for sustainable land management, biodiversity and climate mitigation/adaptation at farm and landscape level; and iii) Monitoring and Assessment.
The Consultant is expected to:
- Provide expertise on the design of the full project (FP) taking into account international best practices and lessons learnt from technology transfer projects elsewhere;
- Review relevant literature, including technical reports, feasibility studies and project reviews;
- Review reports and deliverables prepared by other consultants in the project development team;
- Guide the inputs of other local and international experts working for the project and finalizing the project design and presentation as elaborated under the PPG;
- Prepare a project results framework, with goals, objectives, outcomes, outputs, activities, indicators, and delineation of responsibilities; including detailed incremental cost analysis as per GEF guidance; precise definition of baseline projects, activities, budgets, goals and co-financing links to GEF outcomes, definition of GEF incremental value per outcome and output, presentation of results of the incremental cost analysis in matrices;
- Define the social, economic, financial and environmental sustainability strategy (a sustainability plan) of proposed project activities, including gender aspects. The sustainability plan will outline the principles and guidelines for ensuring the long-term sustainability of project achievements. It will also outline an exit strategy, seeking the continuation of key activities/achievements without the need of long-term international financing;
- Cost the proposed outcomes, identify co-financing sources and secure co-financing commitment letters;
- Define the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan including clear identification of responsibilities and accountabilities, as well as an appropriate M&E budget. The plan will be based on the standard template provided in the UNDP/FAO-GEF project document template that reflects the mandatory requirements of the GEF M&E Policy;
- Define the management and coordination arrangements: The organisational structure governing the project will be elaborated, including identification of the project board membership, the project implementing partners and responsible parties; and the reporting structure for the project. A description of the roles and responsibilities of each party in the structure shall be made. Where key consultants shall be required for project implementation, Terms of Reference for those key consultants /contractors to be employed on the project will be developed. Institutional capacity of implementing partners (especially local governments) shall be assessed and project execution arrangements developed;
- Coordinate information-gathering and cooperation with all stakeholders and national consultants;
- Identify risks that may affect the efficacy of project activities and provide mitigation measures at project design/planning and implementation stages;
- Provide expertise on the design of the full project (FP) taking into account international best practices and lessons learnt from management of ecosystem improvement projects elsewhere;
- Conduct workshops with all relevant stakeholders, to build partnerships, collaboration and raise awareness, as needed
- Participate in field visits, as needed; two visits to the country are envisioned as part of the assignment;
- Be responsible for the timely preparation and submission of the FSP for submission to the UNDP Regional Technical Advisor by end March 2016.
Deliverables/Outputs:
- An acceptable inception report, five working days;
- A monitoring and Assessment framework for the global environmental benefits generated by the project, 20 working days;
- A detailed draft project document and budgets presented to stakeholder validation workshop, 30 working days;
- Final Full Size Project document by the including the GEF and CEO Endorsement Requests incorporating the comments which will be made by stakeholders GEF Secretariat, 10 working days.
Note:
All deliverables to be reviewed and approved by UNDP E&E Team Leader.
Working Arrangments:
Overall, the Lead International consultant will report to the UNDP Country Director on contractual obligations (supervised by the Team Leader Energy and Environment), pertaining to the assignment. All reports and deliverables shall be approved by the Team Leader Energy and Environment in consultation with the UNDP Regional Technical Advisor and FAO Technical Advisor. The consultant will maintain regular contact with the client and provide monthly updates on the status of project development.
The consultant will be responsible for liaising with stakeholders for interviews, arranging field visits and coordinating with Government. Finalization of the project document for presentation to GEF will be done in collaboration with the UNDP Regional Technical Advisor and FAO Technical Advisor. UNDP will support organization of stakeholder workshops to review the inception and draft reports.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal industry and Fisheries is the focal point and provides overall leadership for the project on behalf government in accordance Country Sustainable Land Management Investment Framework (2010-2020) implementation framework and National Development Plan 2015/16-2020.
In order to build national capacity, increase ownership and ease development of the project document, the consultant will liaise with the Inter-ministerial Technical Committee on Sustainable land management who shall form a Steering committee to oversee project preparatory activities. In addition, the Consultant will liaise, interact, and collaborate/meet with officials from District Local Governments within the project area as well as relevant Central Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
The Steering Committee shall support the consultant and will do but not limited to the following:
- Provide high level orientation and guidance for the project to ensure policy and technical consistency of the project document preparatory actions;
- Participate in project development workshops to support identification and filling of information gaps regarding the legal/ policy or institutional framework around the food value chains for the target region;
- Generate and provide baseline data concerning food security in the Karamoja region and the coping mechanisms currently used, through partnering with local governments, communities and non-government agencies working in Karamoja;
- Increase awareness through the consultations with other project partners to ensure ownership of project results, and ensure that the project develops in accordance with national development objectives, goals and policies;
- Identify specific activities to be undertaken in order to achieve the overall project objective within the context of the existing legal frame works, and integration and coordination of project activities with other related government and donor-funded initiatives
- Review and validate consultant reports and project strategy; and
- Mobilize co- financing commitment letters;
- Pay special attention to the assumptions and risks identified in the log frame, and seek measures to minimize these threats to project success.
UNDP will support the Consultant in the following areas:
- Access to UNDP Office and its infrastructure (e.g conference room and internet while at UNDP);
- Transport for visits both within Kampala and in the field (for official purposes only);
- UNDP Kampala with support from the Karamoja office will coordinate the keep abreast of the mission’s activities during the consultant’s stay;
- Introduction of the consultant to partners;
- Organize stakeholder consultation workshops where required.
Duration/Time Frame:
- The whole assignment shall be completed within a period of 7 months and require 65 working days. The assignment is expected to start 1 September 2015 and final project document should be ready for submission to GEF Secretariat by 31 March 2016. UNDP and partners will be expected to provide comments on outputs and deliverables within 10 working days to enable the project design to remain within submission timelines.
Duty Station:
- This is a home based assignment with expected travel to Uganda and the project area. Two to three travel missions to Uganda are expected during the project design period. While in Uganda, the consultant will work from the UNDP Country Office and field office in Moroto-Karamoja.
Competencies
Functional Competencies:
Professionalism
- Ability to act professionally and flexibly to engage with government officials, donor representatives, and local communities. Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
- Mature judgment and initiative;
- Ability to present complex issues in a simple and clear manner;
- Ability to work under pressure;
- Good communication and organizational skills;
- Excellent Analytical Skills.
Corporate competencies:
- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
- Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Minimum postgraduate degree in Natural Resource/Agricultural Sciences, Economics, and/or related subjects.
Experience:
- At least 10 years’ experience designing and/or implementing project in developing countries particularly, in GEF project formulation/design;
- Proven and extensive international experience in policy development, legal and regulatory frameworks, land use and land use changes in relation to GHG emission reductions from applied technology interventions;
- Proven and extensive experience with specific practices, tools and technical solutions for effective integration of SLM/SFM practices in agriculture;
- Proven experience in coordinating baseline analyses, log frame development, calculating GHG emissions reductions, quantifying global environmental benefits (GEBS), developing budgets and identifying project risks;
- Ability to develop strong relationships with national consultants; focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to critical feedback; consensus-oriented;
- Highly developed inter-personal, negotiation and teamwork skills, networking aptitude;
- Regional and national knowledge is highly desirable.
Language Requirement:
- Excellent English drafting and communication skills.
Price proposal and schedule of payments:
Pricing: The Lump Sum Amount approach shall be used with the following expectations:
- The lump sum amount must be “all-inclusive”;
- The contract price is fixed regardless of changes in the cost components;
- The initial payment includes the actual cost of the IC’s travel to arrive at the designated Duty Station.This implies that the completion of the journey can be considered as one of the deliverables payable upon arrival.
Payment Schedule
- 20% upon presentation of an acceptable inception report;
- 50% upon completion of deliverable #2&3;
- 30% upon completion of deliverable #4.
Evaluation of Applicants:
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications, technical and financial proposal.
The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical (desk reviews based on CV) and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation; Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation.
Evaluation of Proposals (Method and criteria)
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:
Cumulative analysis
The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation. 70%-30%.
Technical Criteria weight; [70%]; * Financial Criteria weight; [30%].
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation
Technical Criteria – Maximum 1000 points
- Expertise of the Individual – 300 Points;
- Description of approach/methodologyto assignment – 700 Points.
Application requirements:
Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via this website. The application should contain:
- CV In English;
- Technical and Financial Proposal*- (using the standard template) Costs related to missions will be paid separately as per UNDP rules and regulations;
- Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.
Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into one single file.
*Please note that the financial proposal is all-inclusive and shall take into account various expenses incurred by the consultant/contractor during the contract period (e.g. fee, health insurance, vaccination and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services.
Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.
Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org
General Terms and conditions as well as other related documents can be found under: http://on.undp.org/t7fJs.
Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply.
Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:
Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
Technical proposal:
Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment
A methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
Financial proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided
Interested applicants should send an email to:justine.naiga-bagonza@undp.organd copy diana.nabbanja@undp.orgfor a detailed copy of the Terms of Reference.
Price proposal and schedule of payments
Pricing: The Lump Sum Amount approach shall be used with the following expectations:-
- The lump sum amount must be “all-inclusive”;
- The contract price is fixed regardless of changes in the cost components;
- The initial payment includes the actual cost of the IC’s travel to arrive at the designated Duty Station. This implies that the completion of the journey can be considered as one of the deliverables payable upon arrival.
Payment Schedule
• 20% upon presentation of an acceptable inception report
• 50% upon completion of deliverable #2&3
• 30% upon completion of deliverable #4
Evaluation of Applicants:
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications, technical and financial proposal.
The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical (desk reviews based on CV) and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation; Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation
Evaluation of Proposals (Method and criteria)
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:
Cumulative analysis:
The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
- Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
- Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation. 70%-30%.
Technical Criteria weight; [70%]; * Financial Criteria weight; [30%]
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation
Technical Criteria – Maximum 1000 points
- Expertise of the Individual – 300 Points
- Description of approach/methodology to assignment – 700 Points
Application requirements:
Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via this website. The application should contain:
- CV In English;
- Technical and Financial Proposal (using the standard template) Costs related to missions will be paid separately as per UNDP rules and regulations;
- Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials;
- Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into one single file.
Please note that the financial proposal is all-inclusive and shall take into account various expenses incurred by the consultant/contractor during the contract period (e.g. fee, health insurance, vaccination and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services.
Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.
Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org
General Terms and conditions as well as other related documents can be found under: http://on.undp.org/.
Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply.
Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:
- Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP
- Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
Technical proposal:
- Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment
- A methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
Financial proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided as Annex II
Interested applicants should send an email to: justine.naiga-bagonza@undp.org and copy diana.nabbanja@undp.org for a detailed copy of the Terms of Reference.
Annexes (to be downloaded from UNDP Uganda Website, procurement notices section: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=24583): Reference No. 24583
- Annex I - Individual Contractor General Terms and Conditions.
- Annex II – Offerors Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability for the Individual Contractor Assignment and finacial proposal from.