Background

This is the Terms of Reference for the UNDP-GEF Midterm Review (MTR) of the mid - sized project titled “Supporting sustainable land management in steppe and semi-arid zones through integrated territorial planning and agro-environmental incentives” (PIMS #00088403) implemented through the Ministry of Agriculture of Republic of Kazakhstan. The project started on the Project Document signature date and is in its third year of implementation. In line with the UNDP-GEF Guidance on MTRs, this MTR process was initiated before the submission of the second Project Implementation Report (PIR). This ToR sets out the expectations for this MTR.  The MTR process must follow the guidance outlined in the document Guidance For Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects.

Building upon the experience of GEF funded projects’ efforts, the project is designed to create a more conducive policy and legal framework for establishment of agro-environmental incentives for sustainable and better integrated pasture and land use planning and management, and build national and local capacity for practical implementation of such planning in the field.

The Government of Kazakhstan is requesting GEF incremental assistance to address the situation described above by focusing on sustainable land management in critical, productive, steppe, arid and semi-arid landscapes found in Akmola, Kostanay, North and East Kazakhstan Oblasts (i.e., the northern steppe zone: forest steppe, meadow steppe and dry steppe ecosystems), and Almaty and Kyzyl Orda Oblasts (i.e., the southern arid zone: desert and steppe semi-desert ecosystems) of the country. Support is needed to change existing patterns of land use and improve land conditions by strengthening agricultural financial mechanisms and the current land-use planning system, which are the basic financial and administrative drivers of land use, thus addressing land degradation problems in the long term.

The project has built its implementation activities upon existing national subsidy programs in the agricultural sector, as well as on the national environmental development approach by facilitating integrated land use planning, with the emphasis being on decentralization and bottom-up planning, as opposed to the existing highly centralized, top-down system. This will include the wider application of a new financial mechanism in pasture and productive landscape management. Building upon the experience of GEF funded projects’ efforts, the project will create a more conducive policy and legal framework for establishment of agro-environmental incentives for sustainable and better integrated pasture and land use planning and management, and build national and local capacity for practical implementation of such planning in the field. Existing best practices and approaches will be replicated at a wider scale within selected representative oblasts.

The project document was signed in August 2015, and its implementation started in October 2015. Total project budget is $9,499,459 million, 1,9 million of which is a contribution from the GEF. Implementing Agency from the part of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the Analytical center for economic research in agro-industrial complex of the Ministry of Agriculture of RK.

Duties and Responsibilities

The MTR will assess progress towards the achievement of the project objectives and outcomes as specified in the Project Document, and assess early signs of project success or failure with the goal of identifying the necessary changes to set the project on the right track to achieve its intended results. The MTR will also review the project’s strategy; pilots plots and its risks to sustainability.

The MTR must provide evidence based information that is credible, reliable and useful. The MTR team will review all relevant sources of information including documents prepared during the preparation phase (i.e. PIF, UNDP Initiation Plan, UNDP Environmental & Social Safeguard Policy, the Project Document, project reports including Annual Project Review/PIRs, project budget revisions, lesson learned reports, national strategic and legal documents, and any other materials that the team considers useful for this evidence-based review). The MTR team will review the baseline GEF focal area Tracking Tool submitted to the GEF at CEO endorsement, and the midterm GEF focal area Tracking Tool that must be completed before the MTR field mission begins.  

The MTR team is expected to follow a collaborative and participatory approach ensuring close engagement with the Project Team, government counterparts (the GEF Operational Focal Point), the UNDP Country Office(s), UNDP-GEF Regional Technical Advisers, and other key stakeholders. 

Engagement of stakeholders is vital to a successful MTR. Stakeholder involvement should include interviews with stakeholders who have project responsibilities, including but not limited to UNDP Kazakhstan, project team; executing agencies, senior officials and task team/ component leaders, key experts and consultants in the subject area, Project Board, project stakeholders, Protected Areas employees, academia, local government and CSOs, etc.

For detailed information, please refer to Terms of Reference

Competencies

Required skills and experience:

  • Excellent oral and communication skills;
  • Demonstrable analytical skills;
  • Competence in adaptive management, as applied to biodiversity conservation and land desertification protection

Required Skills and Experience

  • Recent experience with result-based management evaluation methodologies;
  • Experience applying SMART indicators and reconstructing or validating baseline scenarios;
  • Competence in adaptive management, as applied to biodiversity conservation and land desertification protection;
  • Experience working with the GEF or GEF-evaluations;
  • Experience working in the CIS region (preferable Kazakhstan);
  • Work experience in the water and sustainable land management or biodiversity area for at least 5 years;
  • Demonstrated understanding of issues related to Environmental Economics, Agriculture, Sustainable Land Management, Organic Farming, Biodiversity conservation; experience in gender sensitive evaluation and analysis.
  • Project evaluation/review experiences within United Nations system will be considered an asset;
  • University degree in natural resources management, economics, environmental studies;
  • Full proficiency in English both written and verbal including ability to review, draft guidelines and edit required project documentation.

Application Procedure:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications (to be uploaded as one file):

  1. Personal CV and/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 (P11 form attached)
  2. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP (template attached);
  3. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided.  If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP. 

NOTE: the all above documents needed to be scanned into one file and uploaded to the online application as a single document, otherwise the candidate's proposal won't be considered.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer:

Initially, individual consultants shall be short-listed on the following minimum qualification criteria:

  • University degree in natural resources management, economics, environmental studies;
  • Work experience in the water and sustainable land management or biodiversity area for at least 5 years.

The shortlisted candidates will be further evaluated based on the Cumulative analysis methodology:

When using this weighted scoring method, 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 and financial criteria specific to the solicitation. 

“compliant/acceptable” can be determined as fully corresponding to the ToR.

  1. * Technical Criteria weight: 70%;
  2. * Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Minimum passing score for technical evaluation is 70% which is 350 points.

Scope of price proposal:

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

  • 10 % of payment upon approval of the final MTR Inception Report 
  • 30 % upon submission of the draft MTR report
  • 60 % upon finalization of the MTR report 

Travel;

All envisaged travel costs including trip to Astana (3 days), Kyzylorda (1 day), Kostanay (1 day), Ayagoz East-Kazakhstan region (2 days) and per diem must be included in financial proposal (UNDP rate per diem for April, 2017 for Astana ($177), Kyzylorda ($113), Ayagoz East-Kazakhstan region (113). In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Annexes: