Background

For the last decades, Cambodia has undergone rapid economic development. However, similar to other countries in the region, its natural resources including forests have been under growing pressure. Cambodia’s forest cover declined from 57% in 2010 to 44% in 2018 (RGC 2017).

In 2009, The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) officially endorsed REDD+ as a crucial strategy to tackle the alarming trend of deforestation and to improve the livelihoods of forest dependent communities. The main objective of REDD+ is to incentivize developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and foster the conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Since 2009, Cambodia’s national REDD+ readiness efforts have been supported by numerous initiatives. These include the UN-REDD Programme, the Readiness Fund of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), CAM-REDD (Japan), and USAID’s Lowering Emissions from Asia’s Forests (LEAF) programme.

The first phase of the FCPF project (FCPF-I) started in 2013 and end in 2017. As per Section 6.3(b) of the FCPF Charter and Resolution PC/7/2010/3, that requires a REDD Country Participant to submit a midterm progress report to the FCPF Participants’ Committee, in September 2016, a mid-term review of the FCPF-I was conducted to review the progress of REDD+ readiness activities since 2011,  analysis of progress achieved in activities from the FCPF grant; review of compliance with the Common Approach and prepare a financing plan for additional FCPF readiness funding. Results of the MTR including a proposal for addition readiness fund was presented to the FCPF 22nd Participants Committee meeting in September 2016 in Accra, Ghana following the FCPF guideline. The FCPF Participants Committee has decided to allocate additional 5 million USD to continue with its preparation for REDD+ readiness.

The FCPF-II was officially signed on September 2017 between the General Directorate of Administration, Nature Conservation and Protection, Ministry of Environment and UNDP as an implementing partners of the World Bank. Building upon the earlier REDD+ readiness efforts, the main goal of the FCPF II project is to prepare Cambodia to be ready for implementation of REDD+ under the UNFCCC by 2020 including strengthening and development of institutions, policies and capacity. In this context, the FCPF phase II project seeks to focus on endorsement of the National REDD+ Strategy (NRS) and development of its Action and Investment Plan (AIP) for the implementation of NRS, continue to support and finalize for the development and operationalization of the RGC’s Safeguards Information System (SIS), National Forest Monitoring System (NFMS), and Forest Reference Level (FRL); development of, and consultation on, land use plans and management strategies for different landscapes and forest types; clarification of the roles and responsibilities enhance capacity of national and subnational governments as well as local communities in managing natural resources; enhancement of productive capacities of production forests and already degraded areas and continue to provide support to build and enhance capacity of REDD+ management arrangement, gender and stakeholders engagement. By end 2020, FCPF/UNDP completed the project Terminal Evaluation of the FCPF-II Project, which concluded that the project has made significant progress towards FCPF-II project outputs and results as well as towards the FCPF Assessment framework. The progress made with the implemented R-PP is encouraging and has built an important foundation to transition from REDD+ readiness to implementation and results-based payments. This evaluation will be supplemented by an evaluation for activities planned and implemented in 2021, based on the specific aims of the FCPF-II project are presented in the following four outputs and the sub-outputs.

Duties and Responsibilities

Based on the Project Results Framework (Annex 1) as well as the FCPF Readiness Assessment Framework, and the additional activities on Enabling private finance through nesting to support REDD+ action in Cambodia   (Annex 2) the STE will assess:

1. the performance of additional activities of the project focusing on the Nesting System and the Guidelines for REDD+ in terms of its relevance, effectiveness and efficiency (Outputs and results);
2. its potential impacts on the results of project Terminal Evaluation of the FCPF-II (November 2020) the findings and achievements in order to sustainability and up-scaling of overall results;
3. the actual and potential impact stemming from the project as a whole with emphasis in activities developed in the 2021

More specifically, the objective of the STE is to provide evidence related to the achievement of project results to date (direct, indirect and or intended) including gender mainstreaming and empowerment and to draw lessons that can both improve the sustainability of benefits from this project, and aid in the overall enhancement of national REDD+ programming.

Interested offeror must  read  the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=82583 for more  detail information about term  of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

Master’s degree in natural resource management, climate change, environmental sciences, or related field, or other closely related field..

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of experience in conducting evaluation for development projects and UNDP funded project. Experience working in the UN system and knowledge of UNDP and/or FCPF monitoring and evaluation policies is a strong asset
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant professional experience in Natural Resource Management, climate change, REDD+, environmental policy.
• Prior work experience with REDD+ planning and implementation; sound understanding of REDD+ institutional framework, proven experience of project design, financial planning, monitoring and evaluation; and, results-based monitoring and evaluation methodologies including formulation of theory of Change concepts.
• Experience working for development projects, with multi stakeholders including government agencies, development agencies, and UN agencies

Language Requirement: High proficiency in English, knowledge of Khmer would be an advantage..

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal

3. Personal CV including experience in similar projects, list of publication written by Candidate and at least 3 references.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email aphikovith.phin@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice