Consultancy to support project funding scoping mission in Ghana

Consultancy to support support project funding scoping mission in Ghana

Scoping Study for SDC’s Contribution to FLR Hub

RfP Reference: IUCN-2025-01- P03298-01

Welcome to this Procurement by IUCN. You are hereby invited to submit a Proposal.

REQUIREMENTS

A detailed description of the services and/or goods to be provided can be found in Attachment 1.

CONTACT DETAILS

Please address your proposal and all correspondence and questions to the IUCN Contact:

IUCN Contact: jolly.chemutai@iucn.org

COMPLETING AND SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL

This timetable is indicative and may be changed by IUCN at any time. If IUCN decides that changes to any of the deadlines are necessary, we will publish this on our website and contact you directly if you have indicated your interest in this procurement (see Section 3.2).

DATE – ACTIVITY

22nd January 2025 – RE-Publication of the Request for Proposals

29th February 2025 – Deadline for submission of proposals to IUCN

6th February 2025 – Planned date for contract award

10th February 2025 – Expected contract start date

Your Proposal must consist of the following:

• Method statement explaining how you will address the Terms of Reference in Attachment 1.
• Your up-to-date CV.
• Details of your experience in providing a similar service.
• Financial proposal including your daily/hourly rates and a total lump-sum price. Proposal rates and prices shall be exclusive of Value Added Tax and must be in [currency].
• Proposals must be prepared in English.

Confidentiality and data protection

IUCN follows the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The information you submit to IUCN as part of this procurement will be treated as confidential and shared only as required to evaluate your proposal in line with the procedure explained in this RfP, and for the maintenance of a clear audit trail. For audit purposes, IUCN is required to retain your proposal in its entirety for 10 years and make this available to internal and external auditors and donors as and when requested.

About IUCN

IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development, and nature conservation to take place together.

Headquartered in Switzerland, IUCN Secretariat comprises around 1,000 staff with offices in more than 50 countries.

Created in 1948, IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,300 Member organisations and some 10,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments, and analysis. Its broad membership enables IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards.

IUCN provides a neutral space in which diverse stakeholders including governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities, indigenous people’s organisations and others can work together to forge and implement solutions to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development.

Working with many partners and supporters, IUCN implements a large and diverse portfolio of conservation projects worldwide. Combining the latest science with the traditional knowledge of local communities, these projects work to reverse habitat loss, restore ecosystems, and improve people’s well-being.

www.iucn.org

https://twitter.com/IUCN/

ATTACHMENT

Attachment 1: Specification of Requirements / Terms of Reference

An individual consultant to support project funding scoping mission in Ghana.

Background

It is estimated that restoring 350m ha of degraded and deforested lands through Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) could annually sequester up to 1.7gt of carbon dioxide equivalent while generating as much as US$ 170bn in net benefits from watershed protection, improved crop yields, and forest products. FLR generates green jobs and promotes healthy and resilient landscapes and communities, a crucial nature-based strategy post-Covid-19. Recognizing the multiple benefits of FLR, 75 governments, and private entities have committed to restore over 210 million ha of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030 as part of the Bonn Challenge1, and as regionalized through platforms AFR100 in Africa, and Initiative 20×20 in Latin America. Now is the time to turn these pledges into action and accelerate and scale the implementation of forest landscape restoration across the globe. However, countries’ limited capacity to implement FLR at scale, the lack of a portfolio of ready and investible FLR projects, the uncoordinated and piecemeal investment preparation, and the need for technical assistance and mobilization of the private sector are some of the known bottlenecks to scaling and accelerating FLR implementation. Conversely, there are many success factors to build on, such as good practices, existing scientific and local knowledge, increased interest by the private sector and investors in FLR, and high levels of engagement by NGOs, to name a few.

It is with this purpose that IUCN has established a global FLR Implementation Hub that is demand-responsive to countries and partners seeking to overcome these bottlenecks and build on success factors to accelerate and scale FLR implementation to generate aforementioned climate and biodiversity benefits and achieve human well-being. The FLR implementation Hub is an important initiative to help achieve the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework restoration Target. The FLR Implementation Hub has three main objectives: 1) Increase the levels of finance available for enabling policies that support public and private FLR investments – Investment Preparedness 2) Strengthen capacity to plan, implement, and monitor FLR interventions and associated carbon stocks across a range of landscapes and contexts – Capacity Development 3) Facilitate increased private-sector engagement and investable project pipeline in restoration action from direct supply chain or impact investments – Private Sector Mobilization and Engagement The FLR Implementation Hub is established as demand-responsive to countries and partners through calls, direct grants, knowledge exchange, and the creation of new partnerships that accelerate and scale FLR implementation and aims to achieve the following goals:

• Establish structures for coordinated public and private sector FLR investment preparation.
• Support land-use plans and policies coherent with FLR strategies (NDCs, FLR commitments) in place, and local-level conditions enabled to initiate FLR on 200,000 ha of degraded lands in prioritized landscapes in four partner countries: capturing 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and
• Public and private sector mobilization and engagement in restoration actions secured, including through direct supply chains or impact investments, of an additional 20 million Euros. Coordination of the Hub, including technical support and the generation and dissemination of new knowledge and tools to scale and accelerate FLR at the global level, as well as monitoring overall FLR implementation progress, is done by the Implementation Technical Support Unit (ITSU).

Initially funded by BMU to support six countries from Latin America and Africa (Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Peru, Tanzania, and Uganda) the hub has received a substantive boost from SDC, pledging to finance scaling up efforts in Mozambique, Ghana and Ghana.

Overall objective of the scoping mission

The main objective of the mission is to carry out an in-depth consultation in Ghana to align the hub approach with national ambitions and commitments (Bonn Challenge, NBSAPs, NDCs, etc) and understand how best the hub can adopted to enhance technical knowledge and capacity, FLR financing, policy and institutional framework, and sustainable livelihood pathway. Again, is to assess the country’s enabling environment, identify potential project sites and assess capacity and knowledge needs and or gaps.

Scope of the study (activities) and responsibilities

1. Assess FLR investment readiness – the requirement to unlock public and private funds (gaps, priorities, opportunities to be scaled up) for Ghana.
2. Gap analysis on knowledge and capacities for FLR implementation including gender perspectives, monitoring, and evaluation including for specific target groups’ capacity development needs for tools, methods, and approaches.
3. Determine/localize factors/criteria to consider in the selection of the potential/priority landscapes for restoration.
4. Main markets, commodities, and existing businesses with which the project intervention can be associated in Ghana.
5. Identify potential financial mechanisms and funding sources (public and private)
6. Define a potential governance structure conducive to demand-responsive systems and FLR.
7. Identify potential implementation Hub operations.
8. Facilitate a consultative stakeholder workshopto agree on baselines and verification system, project rationale, and risk management strategy.
9. Gap analysis of data and systems availability as well as data needs (biophysical and socioeconomic) including MRV, methodologies, to establish baselines and monitor FLR progress.
10. Assess capacity development needs at the country/landscape level to plan and implement FLR.
11. Identification of potential governance structures for decision- making at sector, national, and landscape level
12. Analyse social landscape of priority areas to better understand interest, including cultural dimensions.
13. Defining key success factors and identifying main bottlenecks for scaling and accelerating FLR implementation
14. Assessment of investment flows and potential programs/partners in priority landscapes
15. Agreement on project rationale and project baselines, activities, potential verification systems, and risk management strategy,

Deliverables

1. Consultation workshop report
2. SDC scoping report for Ghana that includes:
3. Introduction and context of FLR in the country,
4. Significance of SDC investment,
5. FLR investment readiness, including gender-sensitive country-level action plans with emphasis on gender and governance,
6. Data and systems availability as well as data needs (biophysical and socioeconomic), including MRV methodologies for each country,
7. Gap analysis on knowledge and capacities for FLR implementation with gender lengths, monitoring, and evaluation for each country,
8. Main markets, commodities, and existing businesses with gender lengths,
9. Potential financial mechanisms and funding sources (public and private),
10. Proposed governance structures conducive to demand-responsive systems and Global FLR Implementation Hub operations,
11. Potential/priority landscapes for the Project in Ghana.

Specific deliverable

Report – Deadline and Specific deliverable

Draft SDC scoping mission report – 10th March 2025

A draft SDC scoping mission which shall include:

• Detailed workshop report
• Draft report capturing the approaches used in scoping mission and the result in the activities outlines in section 3.

Final scoping report – 20th March 2025

A final SDC scoping report addressing the expected outputs an as per the activities in section 3.

Requirements

A consultant with diverse skills and qualifications including:

• At least 10 years of proven experience in conservation sector and specifically dealing with forest landscape restoration and monitoring.
• Understanding of FLR principles including geospatial protocols, methods, and tools.
• Experience in the design of FLR projects.
• Extensive experience in working with government partners.
• Master’s degree or higher in natural resources or land management or policy, or closely related fields or equivalent experience.
• Well-organized, proven ability to work independently as well as with a large, decentralized workforce of professionals of different nationalities, and deliver on time and budget.
• Excellent writing skills and fluent in English.
• Excellent interpersonal and networking skills, especially within multi-stakeholder contexts

Technical Evaluation Criteria

The technical evaluation will be made using the following criteria and maximum points:

Criteria – Information to provide – Relative weight

Clarity and completeness of the Proposal: Approaches suggested in the technical proposal, including the work plan, are feasible and provide a clear path for successful, on-time, on-budget completion of the work. – 40%

• Clear understanding of the assignment objectives and operationalization of the approach and methodology to undertake the assignment.

At least bachelor’s degree in natural resources or land management or policy, or closely related fields or equivalent experience. – 30%

• Education background

At least 10 years of proven experience in conservation sector and specifically dealing with forest landscape restoration and monitoring: Evidence from previous related assignments in Ghana – 30

Brief details of similar/relevant work done in Ghana.

Total – 100%

Payment Schedule

The table below summarizes the chronological order of deliverables and indicates milestones at which IUCN will pay the Consultant.

Deliverable – Milestone payment

An inception report – 30%

Draft and progress report – 40%

Final report – 30%

How to apply

Step 1: Acquire Tender Documents
Obtain the relevant tender documents.

Step 2: Review Requirements
Thoroughly read the tender specifications, terms, and conditions.

Step 3: Prepare Proposal
Prepare your proposal as guided, ensuring all the required information is included.

Step 4: Submission
Submit your completed proposal by 29th, January, 2025 via the email address jolly.chemutai@iucn.org