Background

Project Title: UNCDF-LDFPA-LoCAL

 Project Description and Background

UNCDF and Local Development Finance Practice

UNCDF works with local and central government institutions to improve the capacity of local governance institutions in planning, budgeting, public expenditure management, procurement and delivery management and other areas related to the application of development capital and other resources.

UNCDF is supporting an expanding portfolio of programmes in all regions that provide capital resources to local governance processes to enable them to meet the challenges of poverty reduction, the Millennium Development Goals and climate change. These programmes promote local level public financial management and decentralized governance responses to these challenges.

Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility – Programme Description

The goal of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) is to promote climate change resilient communities and local economies by increasing investments in Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) at the local level in target countries, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the specific goals of poverty eradication (SDG1) and climate action (SDG13). The objectives are to increase local government access to climate finance to implement climate change adaptation investments in participating countries and to establish a standard and internationally recognized country-based mechanism to channel climate finance and increase local resilience through PBCRGs

LoCAL focuses on the delivery of four outputs that will directly contribute to increasing local governments’ access to climate finance and building resilience to climate change:

Output 1 – Awareness and capacities to respond to climate change adaptation at the local level are increased

Output 2 - CCA is mainstreamed into government’s planning and budgeting systems and investments are implemented in line with the PBCRG mechanism

Output 3 - The PBCRG system is effectively and sustainably established in participating countries and leads to an increased amount of CCA finance available to local government and local economy

Output 4: The role of local authorities and of the PBCRGS in addressing climate change are increasingly recognized at international level, through outreach, learning and quality assurance

The LoCAL approach entails into capacity building of local governments and operates through Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRG).

LoCAL Programme Implementation

LoCAL works in three phases.

Phase I: Following scoping, the first phase entails testing in a small number (2-4) of local governments. Phase I has a budget of USD 300,000 per year. It can include co-financing from government or other partners. Phase I introduces the Performance-Based Climate Resilient Grant (PBCRG) over one or two fiscal cycles; it tests the minimum conditions and performance measures of the PBCRG and the relevance of the menu of investments (eligible adaptation measures). It provides the necessary experience and lessons for the refinement of the approach and the design of phase II in conjunction with the appropriate national authorities and partners.

Phase II: Phase II takes place in around 5 to 10 of local governments (of the appropriate tier) in a country. Phase II is usually financed by UNCDF together with financing partners and has generally a budget of USD 3,5 to USD 10 million. Funding can come directly through the LoCAL project or through parallel financing if government or other development partners make resources available to the LoCAL methodology, with TA and QA by UNCDF. The purpose of this phase is to demonstrate the effectiveness of LoCAL and create the conditions for a full national rollout of the approach.

Phase III: Phase III consist of a full national rollout of the PBCRG in the country based on the results and lessons of the previous phases. It is gradually extended to all local governments (of the appropriate tier). Phase III is expected to be financed by central government through a re-adjustment of the architecture of existing resources to enable financing of local adaptation, as well as through financing from international organizations, financing institutions and funds such as the Green Climate Fund.

The LoCAL initiative is currently on-going in 13 countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Tuvalu, Tanzania and The Gambia). Programmes are under preparation in Uganda and Ivory coast with more countries expected to join the initiative in 2019-2022.

LoCAL in Cambodia

Cambodia’s Local Governments and Climate Change (LGCC) was one of the first LoCAL country projects and is a recognized success. Consequently, Cambodia is considered ready to become one of the first LoCAL countries to move to Phase 3, in which the national implementing partners directly mobilizes funds from a variety of external and domestic sources for a programmatic approach to sub-national climate change adaptation.

Strategic results of LGCC include, first and foremost, the successful demonstration that SNA can have an important role in climate change adaptation and have adequate capacity to plan and implement CCA interventions responding to the needs of their local communities. LGCC, with other projects, has piloted the used of local CCA planning tools including Vulnerability Reduction Analysis (VRA) and the District Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. LGCC has been the first local development programme in Cambodia to link grant awards to performance Evaluations. LGCC has assisted in developing guidelines to mainstream climate change adaptation into local development planning. These achievements have been widely recognized and have stimulated considerable interest, including from the Ministry of Environment and from development partners supporting CCA activities.

The objective of the LoCAL-Cambodia initiative, the Local Governments and Climate Change Project (LGCC), is to demonstrate the role of local governments in fostering climate change resilience and identify practical ways to mainstream climate change resilience into subnational planning and finance systems. The project’s major outcomes and related outputs are as follows:

• Increased awareness of climate change and potential adaptation and resilience-building responses among subnational governments and local communities;
• Integration of cross-sectoral, analysis-based strategies for building climate change resilience in subnational plans and investment programmes;
• Systems and procedures for mainstreaming climate change resilience within subnational government public expenditure management systems in a fiscally sustainable manner proven and available for scale-up;
• National guidelines for subnational public expenditure management (e.g. subnational and annual budget planning, investment programming, medium-term expenditure framework) facilitate mainstreaming of climate change resilience, particularly through cooperative actions between district/municipal and commune/sangkat councils and administrations.

Achievements: 

• LGCC Phase I was launched in three local administrations in the Takeo province: Doun Keo municipality and the Bati and Borei Chulsar districts.
• Cambodia successfully moved to the bridging Phase II (2016–2018) aimed at strengthening systems and building capacity for a full roll-out of subnational climate change adaptation finance. During Phase II, the programme expanded to five districts in Battambang – Bavel, Mong Ruessei, Rukhak Kiri, Sampov Lun and Thma Koul – with a total population of 1.8 million. Three of these districts (Bavel, Mong Ruessei and Thma Koul) have been selected for inclusion during the bridging phase as part of the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Agriculture Services Programme for Innovation, Resilience and Extension (ASPIRE), which will support climate-adaptive productive infrastructure in 32 districts.
• In 2018, the second and final year of the bridging phase came to an end, with all outstanding sub-projects from 2017 successfully completed. Performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) totaling $381,691 were allocated to eight districts and used to finance 36 subprojects. These benefited some 125,000 people (51 per cent of whom were women); about 30 per cent of the beneficiaries were members of households with ID-Poor cards.
• Various initiatives were undertaken to improve climate change adaptation mainstreaming, including adoption of a new climate vulnerability mapping tool (with subsequent trainings to relevant local authorities) and alignment of rankings along a Climate Change Vulnerability Index to select new potential local partners (which is part of the National Climate Change Monitoring and Evaluation Framework), as well as performance assessments in targeted districts which allow for transfers of new PBCRG cycles. In addition, LoCAL contributed to the development of NCDD Secretariat (NCDD-S) policies on environmental and social safeguards and gender; preparation of a Performance-Based Grants Manual which will be finalized and approved in 2019; and identification of a partnership project for climate-adaptive water supplies in a Battambang district with Korean-Water and the Korean Ministry of Land and Transport.
• The long-term path to scaling up and institutionalizing PBCRGs is through financing from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and other sources. To this end, in 2015, the Ministry of Environment, as national designated agency for the GCF, nominated the NCDD-S as a national implementing entity under the GCF’s Enhanced Direct Access modality. This nomination is a major achievement for the LGCC, as it is expected to make climate change adaptation finance accessible to the most vulnerable local administrations nationwide. With LGCC support, NCDD-S has now reached Stage II of GCF accreditation process; this has helped influence other least developed countries within LoCAL to initiate their own process of GCF accreditation for subnational climate change finance.
• With support from UNCDF and the Korea Environment Institute, Cambodia began developing national scientific climate change reports to inform and strengthen public adaptation planning.
• Cambodia was selected by UNCDF and the World Resources Institute as one of three pilot countries to test the framework for assessing climate change adaptation to monitor the extent to which LoCAL country programmes contribute to increased resilience and capacity building for adaptation. A workshop on the framework was held in the second quarter of 2018 to train government staff.

Overall, 276 adaptation measures have been financed through PBCRGs. The largest share (approximately 31 per cent) of investments are aimed at improving transport systems, especially during the rainy season, for people and goods; followed by those aimed at strengthening the resilience of agricultural systems and improving the availability of potable and safe water (18 per cent each), disaster prevention and preparedness (16 per cent), health (4 per cent), environmental protection (2 per cent) and forestry (1 per cent). Of the 276 projects financed, 229 are small-scale infrastructure projects mainly entailing construction of elevated roads/bridges and renovation/construction of rural/farm roads; restoration/protection of irrigation canals; and rehabilitation/construction of water gates, sewage systems and community ponds. Several capacity-building and awareness-raising activities were also supported – e.g. on climate change causes and effects (both for local authorities and communities), agricultural climate-resilient practices (improved varieties of rice, good agricultural practices, cattle farming, etc.), health and sanitation (prevention of climate change–borne diseases, personal hygiene, etc.) and general environmental protection.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will have a team leader/coordinator role and will thus oversee the work of the one other national ICs, in close collaboration with the LoCAL Facility. Working under the direct supervision of the UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) or designate(s) from UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) and in close collaboration with the governments and UNCDF, the Consultant will be in charge to conduct final assessment for LoCAL project in Cambodia.

The assessment approach should also take into consideration, as far as possible, UNCDF’s broader monitoring efforts and incorporate – where possible - financial and economic evaluation techniques into the evaluation design.

The assessment should draw upon mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative data using both existing secondary data sources and primary data to be collected during the assessment, ensuring evidence-based findings and recommendations. The secondary data sources of the assessment should include the studies commissioned by the programmes themselves.

The objective of the work is:

• To assess the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and timeliness of programme implementation of the LGCC bridging phase (BP)
• Validate and/or refine the programme’s theory of change at this stage of implementation
• To verify progress of LGCC BP towards the outcomes and objectives identified in the results framework for LGCC BP;
• To assess the contribution made by the LGCC BP investments to strengthening climate resilience of local communities;
• To assess the gender/poor/vulnerable people inclusion/consideration/analysis in the PBCRG mechanism and LGCC BP investments;
• To assess the capacity of NCDDS to sustain the PBCRG mechanism in place, in case there is no DPs fund supports;
• To assess viability of the LGCC model for scale-up within the context of the NP-SNDD, taking into account relevant factors including the availability of general-purpose fiscal transfers to the SNA (District/Municipality Fund and Commune/Sangkat Fund), the market demonstration effects – or financial additionality/ development additionality and specific climate resilience financing instruments.
• To identify key lessons learned;
• To analyze the findings by measuring the positive or negative consequences of the investment, approach implemented under LGCC, and provide narrative with a Theory of Change (ToC) based approach.

Provide appropriate recommendations to guide UNCDF and NCDDS in developing proposals for future funding of investments for climate resilience at sub-national level.

Audience

The primary audience for this assessment is UNCDF and key stakeholders (including programme funders) and partners in the UNCDF-supported countries that have benefited from LoCAL support.

Scope of Work

The scope of work for the Consultant will include:

• Review key literature, datasets and discussions with stakeholders, achieve a thorough understanding of the purpose and context of LGCC;
• Obtain from the current and NCDDS and UNCDF project staff, evaluate the actual and projected (end of project status) project achievement measured by the Results Framework indicators;
• Validate the results framework indicator values through field visits and stakeholder discussions including discussions with beneficiary communities;
• Verify the baseline information as certain baseline information may have changed as a result of the LGCC BP programme intervention.
• Establish a new robust baseline for the next phase of LGCC
• Assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of the planning tools used by LGCC, in particular the Vulnerability Reduction Evaluation (VRA), the District Climate Resilience Strategy, PBCRG Programming process and PBCRG annual performance assessment;
• Assess the appropriateness of the design of the PBCR Grants, including eligible expenditures, allocation formula, and the system of using sub-grants from the District level to finance Commune level investments
• Assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of the sub-project selection process of LGCC;
• Assess the contribution made by the LGCC sub-projects to developing climate resilient communities;
• Assess the extent to which LGCC sub-projects specifically benefit women, the poor and other vulnerable groups (Specific narrative part for women/poor/vulnerable beneficiaries’ analysis would be required in the report).
• Assess the relevance of the LGCC model to the policy direction of the RGC as expressed in (1) the NP-SNDD and (2) the Cambodia Climate Change Strategic Plan.
• Assess the capacity of NCDDS in sustaining PBCRG mechanism by using government financing mechanism.
• Address any bottlenecks and constraints of the programme implementation and for the scaling up of the programme national wide.
• Based on the assessment findings, review and strengthen the LGCC project indicators by verifying and updating the benchmarks on key performance indicators as well as recommending additional qualitative and quantitative indicators for the next phase of LGCC.

As previously informed, the consultant will have a team leader/coordinator role and will thus oversee the work of one other national IC, in close collaboration and consultation with the LoCAL Facility. His/her functions will include, inter alia:

• developing briefings and debriefings on missions and assignments;
• Ensuring standards and quality of outputs/deliverables/methodology are observed and applied;
• Technical review of draft reports, methodology and other documents submitted by the experts;
• Focal point for technical support on field of expertise to selected experts;

Supporting the LoCAL Facility in assessing distribution of workload among selected individual contractors.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

 Provision Of Monitoring And Progress Controls

The Consultant will perform tasks in collaboration with UNCDF country teams, and report to the LoCAL Project Manager.

Deliverables shall be submitted to the LoCAL Project Manager.

The payments will be made to the Consultant within each mission will be phased and payment will be made against key deliverables based on the completion of the deliverables indicated in the TOR.

Payments will be authorized by the LoCAL Project Manager.

Copyright

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.

Competencies

Corporate competencies

• Committed to highest regards of professionalism, impartiality, accountability, transparency, ethics, and integrity;
• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Understanding of the mandate and the role of UNCDF would be an asset;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Demonstrates substantial experience in gender equality and social inclusion.
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism

 Functional and technical competencies

• Ability to work effectively within a team and develop good relationships with counterparts and stakeholders;
• Ability to synthesize research and draw conclusion on the related subjects;
• Ability to pay attention to details;
• Demonstrates transparency and provides feedback to all those who will contribute to the evaluation;
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing;
• Ability to establish effective working relations in a multicultural team environment;
• Commitment to accomplish work;
• Responds positively to critical feedback;
• Results and task oriented. 

Required Skills and Experience

Educational Qualifications

• Advanced university degree (Masters and equivalent) in development studies, economics, international relations, or related field; PhD an asset.

Experience

• At least 7 years of proven experience of designing and leading international development evaluations (including standalone projects or programmes, or interventions contributing to broader programmatic interventions conducted by single or multiple partners, including for the UN system)  applying mixed-methods evaluation approaches, including examples of theory-of-change-based, utilization-focused, participatory, and gender- and equity-focused evaluations and an understanding of a variety of different modalities in international development cooperation supporting interventions of this type
• Specialized experience and/or methodological/technical knowledge, including some specific data collection and analytical skills, particularly in the following areas: understanding of human rights-based approaches to programming; gender considerations; environmental sustainability, Results-Based Management (RBM) principles; logic modelling/logical framework analysis; quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis; participatory approaches
• Experience in developing relevant program recommendations from evaluation insights;
• Previous experience years of demonstrated experience in support to policy making and capacity development of regulators overseeing inclusive finance systems;
• Excellent knowledge of the UN system and UN common country programming processes;
• Previous experience and understanding of development and climate change issues;
• Demonstrated experience in integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment in evaluations; Evidence of formal evaluation and research training, including familiarity with OECD or UN norms and standards for development evaluation

Language requirements

Fluency in written and spoken English. 

Evaluation Method and Criteria

• Consultants will be evaluated based on UNDP’s cumulative analysis method. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract shall be made to the consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
• Responsive/compliant/acceptable vis-à-vis the requirements of the TOR and the project operating environment; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical (70%) and financial (30%) criteria.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation

Application process:

Interested individuals must submit the documents mentioned below as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications (Note: the system does not allow multiple uploads of documents. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

All applications must contain the following information:

• Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies in relation to the Terms of Reference (TOR);
• Earliest availability and proposed schedule for consultancy;
• Curriculum Vitae;
• Signed financial proposal for the assignment outlining: All-inclusive fee (including professional fees and other professional expenses, such as insurance, taxes, etc.), Available at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=29916). 

Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

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