Background

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) is a mechanism to integrate climate change into local authorities’ planning and budgeting through the regular intergovernmental fiscal transfer system using performance-based grants in a participatory and gender sensitive manner, increase awareness and capacities to respond to climate change at the local level including through ecosystem-based solutions, and increase the quality and number of local investments that address climate change. LoCAL combines performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs), which ensure programming and verification of change expenditures at the local level, with technical and capacity-building support. It uses the grants and demonstration effect to trigger further flows for local climate action including global climate finance and national fiscal transfers. LoCAL also aims to support private finance for small and medium businesses and municipal finance and public-private partnerships. LoCAL is currently active in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, with another 13 countries preparing to join (at the design stage).

UNCDF is bringing its expertise in promoting a green and climate resilient local communities and economies for returnees, youth and women to support job creation in regions of departure, transit and return in Ghana, creating local ecosystems that facilitate the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and enabling the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development under  the Boosting  Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn) project, funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa. This intervention is being implemented in 10 MMDAs. This project contributes to addressing the root causes of irregular migration through green and climate resilient local economic development and improving prospects of beneficiaries, by creating employment and enterprise opportunities in selected Municipal and District Assemblies within two (2) Regions namely, Ashanti and Western.

 The Project aims at supporting job creation in regions of departure, transit and return of Ghana, creating local financial ecosystems that facilitate the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and enabling the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development.

UNCDF is also implementing under the project, Promoting Green and Climate Resilient Local Economies in Ghana – Applying circular economy (CE) and climate smart agriculture (CSA) principles and solutions to local development pathways in 6 MMDAs. The objective of the assignment is to contribute to build green and climate resilient local economies in Ghana, applying circular economy and climate-smart agriculture (CSA) principles and solutions to local development pathways with funding from the Government of Norway.

Overall, UNCDF’s interventions are expected to achieve the Project objective through increasing selected District Assemblies’ access to climate finance to plan and implement locally led green and climate resilient public investments, while consolidating a country-based and internationally recognized mechanism to channel climate finance for local action through the performance-based climate resilience grant (PBCRG) system.

Scope of Work 

A linear economy has the principle of which resources are used for production, products being made, marketed, used and discarded thereby excluding the possibility of optimizing limited resources used in the ecosystem. Cities around the world, therefore, are adopting circular models based on a healthy circulation of these scarce resources, and principles of re-use, re-cycle, and restoration, with an emphasis on limiting waste volumes generated at the municipal level and putting premium on producing locally leading in some ways, to accelerating local economic development.

Likewise, Ghana’s agriculture sector is being affected by the impacts of climate change and more so because the structure of the Ghanaian agriculture makes it more vulnerable to climate change as it is almost entirely rainfed. In summary, Ghana’s agriculture sector’s vulnerability to climate change will require it to reorient its approach toward climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

The assignment towards the end should thus be, assessing the CE concepts pertaining to local government authorities, gaps identified and capacity building recommendations while developing pertinent tools, guidelines and toolkits pertaining CE and CSA, for the effective delivery of services and project implementation in the target Districts, that should promote climate resilience whilst applying CE and CSA principles and solutions, using the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) approach, under the oversight of District Assemblies.

Working under the overall guidance of the Global LoCAL Facility Manager and on the ground supervision of the Technical Specialist (Local Government Finance) and in close collaboration with the Government of Ghana through the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGDRD), Environmental Protection Agency, Ministry of Food and Agriculture and its other partners, the expert will be responsible for contributing to the assignment as follows:

• The regulatory and policy frameworks for circular economy and climate smart agriculture and the actors involved together with the progress made with these in relation to ongoing programmes and initiatives.
• Based on the regulatory and policy frameworks, undertake a needs assessment at the District Assembly level on the extent of mainstreaming CE and CSA in their planning, budgeting, and implementation. The needs assessment will look at the overall ecosystem for CE and CSA mainstreaming at the Municipal and District Assemblies levels and focus initially on the three (3)   LoCAL beneficiary Municipal and District Assemblies namely, Efutu, Ada East and Fanteakwa North Municipal as the first sample group. The assessment should also focus on a second group, to include an additional three (3) District Assemblies from the GrEEn target districts that could deploy CE and CSA under the LoCAL framework.
• The needs identified would establish the causes and prioritised for an improved response from the Municipal and District Assemblies to these key areas of their economy for sustainable management of the local economies.
• Develop district level guidelines to aid District Assemblies in fulfilling their mandates in respect of the CE and CSA as part of the implementation of their respective Medium-Term Development Plans (MTDPs) and Annual Action Plans (AAPs). The specific content and focus of the guidelines will be determined based on findings from the needs assessment and review of existing tools and approaches already in use/available at the district/country level.
• Establish the capacities required through training workshops that will promote the mainstreaming of CE and CSA into the planning, budgeting and implementation mandates of the target LoCAL Assemblies in line with the guidelines developed.
• Make recommendations for the uptake of the guidelines at the districts level and by relevant national institutions to improve the status quo. 
• Assess the investment menu for LoCAL and make proposals for integration of CE and CSA principles in investments for use by Assemblies for their planning and budgeting operations.
• Make recommendations for monitoring and implementation of CE and CSA as critical new areas of district development operations.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables 

All products and reports related to the assignment and mission will be provided to UNCDF and be subject to associated copyrights. The contractor will not use, without prior permission of UNCDF, any the materials or data produced during the assignment for any other purpose than furnishing UNCDF with a project delivery. Any use or reference to the information contained within the presented mission documents must be prior clarified and approved by UNCDF and clearly reference UNCDF as the source. 

Institutional Arrangements

The incumbent will work under the direct supervision of the LTF Technical Specialist based in Accra and under the overall supervision of the LoCAL Facility Manager.

There will be a briefing and debriefing and regular discussions between the consultant(s) and UNCDF LoCAL Facility manager as well as in-country partners (government and project leads).

Payment will be made upon satisfactory completion of the assignment.  Payments will be authorized by the LoCAL Facility Manager.

Logistics and Administrative Support to Prospective IC

The consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (laptop, internet, phone, scanner, reliable internet, etc.).

All expenses must be anticipated and factored into the professional fees; except duty or workshop related travel which will be borne by UNCDF as and when necessary.

Duration of Work 

The assignment is expected to last for twenty (20) working days spread over a two-month period starting from June and ending in July 2023. A tentative calendar for the submission of key deliverables is provided. 

Duty Station and expected places of travel: Home-based with initial domestic missions to Efutu, Ada East and Fanteakwa North Municipal and District Assemblies or other agreed District Assemblies by the consultant, as whenever necessary.

Competencies are covered under Qualifications. 

Education (Required): Postgraduate degree in Climate Change and Sustainable Development, Urban Development, Environmental Science and Management, Human Geography, or other related fields. A first-level university degree in combination with fifteen additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. 

Experience: 

• At least 10 years of national professional experience in the fields of environment and climate change, green urban/local development, with a specific emphasis on environmental policy and governance, circular economy, sustainable urban/local planning and/or mainstreaming, local environmental and climate governance, required           
• Experience in capacity development and institutional strengthening on climate change (adaptation/mitigation), green transition and sustainable economic development, ideally in the context of decentralization processes, required 
• Strong analytical and writing skills and track record in producing relevant programme documents, guidelines and similar knowledge materials, required
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills and experience in organizing and facilitating consultations, field visits and workshops.
• Work experience in Ghana, required. 
• Sensitivity to diverse opinions and difficulties arising from differing social and cultural perceptions.

Language: High language proficiency in written and oral English.

Important Note:

The Consultant is required to have the abovementioned professional and technical qualifications. Only the applicants who holds these qualifications will be shortlisted and contacted.

Criteria for Selecting the Best Offer: 

Individual Consultants will be evaluated based on the combined Scoring method – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted a max. of 70% and combined with price offer which will be weighted at a maximum of 30% with the following requirements:

• 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. In this regard, the respective weight of the proposals are:
  1. Technical Criteria weight is 70%
  2. Financial Criteria weight is 30%?

Payment Terms

The qualified consultant shall receive his/her lump sum service fees upon certification of the completed tasks satisfactorily, as per the following payment schedule:

Recommended Presentation of Offer

For purposes of generating quotations whose contents are uniformly presented and to facilitate their comparative review, a prospective Individual Contractor (IC) must submit the following documents as proposals to demonstrate their qualifications.

The application must contain the following:

1. Personal Profile:

• Cover letter
• Technical proposal containing: workplan, methodology, statement on quality control method for the assignment
• A Curriculum Vitae (CV) containing applicant’s official name, the qualifications, and professional experiences (with similar projects) relevant to the assignment/TOR and the contact details (email address, telephone numbers) of three professional references

2. A signed financial proposal for the assignment - (Please click here for document) Since this contract modality is deliverable-based, please make sure to complete the quote/offer showing proposed fees per deliverable. 

The financial offer should be quoted in New Ghana Cedis (GHS - Local currency for Ghana), outlining the all-inclusive fee, supported by a breakdown of reimbursable – direct and indirect – costs (if applicable).

Please upload your CV along with your online application in this job site; all other supporting documents shall be sent to uncdf.procurement@uncdf.org with the following subject line: VA 112560 - National Consultant to conduct Needs Assessment and Guidelines on Circular Economy and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) - Accra, GHANA

CONFIDENTIALITY AND PROPRIETARY INTERESTS

The Individual Consultant shall not either during the term or after termination of the assignment, disclose any proprietary or confidential information related to the consultancy service without prior written consent. Proprietary interests on all materials and documents prepared by the consultants under the assignment shall become and remain properties of UNCDF.