Job Description

Title of Consultancy

Development of a Concept Note for an Adaptation Fund Project on Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (Eba) for Climate Resilience of Host and Displaced Communities in Flood-Prone Jowhar District of Somalia with a focus on the Resilience Needs of Children and Youth

Advert Date

13/03/2024

Deadline Date

26/03/2024

SCI Contracting Office

Save the Children Somalia Country Office

Period of Consultancy

The assignment will be done in one month inclusive of travel.

Consultant type required

Consultancy Firm/ Individual Consultant

Responsibility for Logistics arrangements and Costs

Save the Children will pay the consultant fee in installments and the consultant will cover their own logistical arrangements and costs; including food, accommodation and local transport and all cost associated with data collection work and other activities. Where an international consultant is involved, same rules and procedures will also apply.

Taxation Provisions

The consultancy firm shall be responsible for all Taxes arising from the consultancy in line with the local Tax regulations applicable at the SCI contracting office named above.

Travel requirements

The consultancy firm/individual will cover their travel costs (tickets) and arrange local travel to field sites if needed

Security requirements

The Consultancy Firm/Individual will comply with standards of Save the Children Security procedures, including the completion of SCI online security training prior to travel to Somalia.

INTRODUCTION:

Save the Children has worked in Somalia for over 70 years and is a national and international leader in humanitarian and development programming. Our long operational history and broad geographical coverage, have afforded us positive working relationships with key stakeholders, including the federal government, state and local authorities, donors, international and local NGOs, as well as the trust and acceptance of the communities themselves. Save the Children has an operational presence in 17 regions in the country, with over 640 national and international staff across 14 field offices.

Save the Children implements a wide range of multi-sectoral humanitarian and development projects in Somalia. Our programming is guided by our Country Strategic Plan 2022-24 which follows a child life cycle model to make sure our programs consider a child and their needs holistically and respond with thematically integrated and age-appropriate interventions. Our active portfolio in 2023 covers programs in Food Security and Livelihoods, Social Protection, Youth Economic Empowerment, Education, Health, Nutrition, WASH, Child Protection, Child Rights Governance and Advocacy while mainstreaming climate change adaptation across our portfolio. In addition, gender equality and disability inclusion are mainstreamed in all our programs.

Background:

Save the Children International has a unique role in amplifying children's voices and encouraging leadership in the climate movement. Around 1 billion children, or nearly half of all children worldwide, live in countries at extreme risk of the impacts of climate change. Children most impacted by inequality and discrimination and living on the frontlines of the climate crisis will face the highest costs, deeply affecting their capacity to thrive and survive. Save the Children's analysis showed that 183 million children across the world face the triple threat of high climate risk, multidimensional poverty, and conflict. In response to this climate crisis, Save the Children has made the climate crisis a global focus through fundraising to promote increased action and investment in climate change adaptation. In Somalia Save the Children’s climate adaption focuses on Ecosystem Services-based.

The Government of Somalia has requested Adaptation Fund support to develop a new USD10M project for Adaptation Fund financing, focused on Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) for climate resilience of host and displaced communities in flood-prone Jowhar District (Somalia) with a focus on the resilience needs of children and youth.

The project will contribute to the implementation of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) 2022. It will support specifically the following priorities: (i) strengthening governance, awareness, and knowledge building; (ii) increasing capacities for sustainable and resilient livelihoods; (iii) integrated coastal and watershed resources management; (iv) food security through bioeconomy, and (v) protection, sustainable management, and valorization of natural resources. The project is fully aligned with and supports government programmes aiming at reversing the historical trend of environmental degradation and investing in ecosystem restoration and nature-based solutions as a key driver to achieve sustainable development goals by 2030. This project also aligns with Somalia’s integrated resilient landscape approach and its vision of strategically placing ecosystem restoration as a nature-positive solution that can address Somalia’s environmental and social challenges in ways that are pragmatically tailored to its context. The overarching goal of the project is to Enhancing Climate Resilience of the Vulnerable Communities and Ecosystems in Somalia the specific project outcomes will be defined during the concept note preparation, but could include elements of the following:

Component 1: Protecting ecosystem services and reducing flood risk exposure through sustainable and climate-resilient water and natural resource management:

The key concept of this component is to ensure that the riverine ecosystem is protected and restored to remain productive and resilient in the context of increasing annual mean temperature and rainfall variability. Both host and displaced communities living in Jowhar are highly dependent on ecosystem services for water access, food production, disaster risk reduction and human well-being. A significant focus will be given to restoring the degraded riverine ecosystems to meet the current and future needs of the population and the sustainable and climate-resilient management of specific weak points of the Shabelle River. In Jowhar district, river management and related climate risk and disaster prevention and mitigation are very weak, resulting in recurrent flooding of farmland alongside periods of water scarcity due to reduced water levels. An immediate consequence of recurrent flooding is the displacement of local populations, their further impoverishment and dependency on humanitarian assistance. In the Gu season of April-May 2021, OCHA reported floods in Jowhar district displaced 66,000 people from 27 villages, destroyed over 40,000 hectares of farmland, disrupted learning in 11 schools and damaged 82 per cent of WASH infrastructures.

Component 2: Improving livelihoods resilience and access to renewable energy:

The component will link closely with component one so that ecosystem services support livelihood strategies and vice versa. The ability to explore alternative livelihood systems that support the resilience of vulnerable livestock, crop production and market systems in Jowhar is significantly constrained by the impacts of cyclical droughts and floods and in some instances, low access to electrical power. Jowhar's high potential as an agricultural center that supplies the region with fresh fruits and vegetables could be realized with increased access and use of climate-resilient production technologies and energy to power crop and livestock value chains. The component aims to enhance access to renewable energy through a private sector-led approach, focusing on value addition (ex. cold chains) and to promote resilient crop production technologies that are water efficient. The model will adopt a market-driven approach, actively encouraging private sector investment by offering technical assistance and support. This support will focus on attracting private sector involvement in the specified markets (supply side) by ensuring their investment readiness. The project will equip young people with the skills needed for operation and maintenance, creating livelihood opportunities, and simultaneously boosting demand through awareness campaigns highlighting the cost-effectiveness of clean and renewable energy. Through this strategy, the project seeks to reduce the pressure on ecosystems and enhance livelihood resilience. Improving value chains and access to energy is also expected to have significant positive social and economic benefits for vulnerable women, youth, and children in IDP camps and urban centers.

Component 3: Strengthen the Local Governance of Climate Change Adaptation:

Underpinning components 1 and 2, this component will support the strengthening of the local governance system and its multiple societal actors in addressing the negative impacts of climate change in Jowhar district and reaping the potential opportunities. District-level multi-stakeholder platforms will be established, including representation of the Community Resilience Committees to conduct participatory and community-based land use planning that supports integrated natural resources management (INRM) activities in line with the Somalia National Development Plan 2020 to 2024. The combination of community-based land use planning, training on land tenure guidelines, amendments of ordinances and by-laws and awareness raising will foster better enforcement of INRM and Sustainable Land Management guidance at the community level, contributing to support smallholder agriculture and the recovery of rangelands.

This project component aims to strengthen local governance for climate change adaptation, specifically focusing on youth and children. It will priorities several key objectives: promoting inclusive political processes, enhancing government institutions' accountability to citizens and the law, safeguarding universally recognized human rights, particularly child rights, and improving overall development outcomes.

The governance themes will revolve around assessing the impact of climate change on Jowhar's societies, examining how governance can effectively address these challenges, and gathering insights directly from stakeholders actively involved in advancing climate adaptation efforts. The project will embrace institutional diversity, engaging various formal and informal community structures, involving stakeholders in decision-making processes and resource allocation at the project level, supporting local authorities in integrating projects into their regular plans and budgets for greater ownership and accountability and facilitating shared learning opportunities.

Implementation Arrangements:

UNEP (Climate Change Adaptation Unit, Climate Change Division) will be the Adaptation Fund (AF) Multilateral Implementing Entity (MIE) for the project. Save The Children will be the Executing Entity (EE) and the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MoECC) as the National Designated Authority (NDA). Partnerships for the development, implementation and monitoring of the project will be further identified and developed during the concept note development phase.

Purpose:

The purpose of the assignment is the development of a concept note to be submitted for funding by the Adaptation Fund.

1. Duties and Responsibilities:

The consultant will lead the development of the concept note for submission for Adaptation Fund Board approval. To this end, the consultant will work closely with and coordinate inputs from SCI and UNEP experts and a group of senior key experts from Somalia institutions, which the Government is assembling to contribute to the development of the concept note.

Specific tasks that the consultant is responsible for include:

Task 1: Develop the project Problem statement, Theory of Change, and intervention strategy

• Undertake consultations with key stakeholders in Somalia and collect all information needed for the development of the concept note.
• Undertake a problem and solution tree analysis and develop the project problem statement that aligns with this (including baseline drivers of vulnerability, root causes and barriers to proposed solutions). Ensure that the climate and non-climate drivers and their interactions are fully integrated and consider the multiple plausible systems futures.
• Develop the project Theory of Change and intervention strategy. Ensure that the project strategy responds directly to the adaptation challenges identified in the problem statement, accurately reflects the needs and capacities of targeted communities, and prioritizes interventions that are robust across different climate and socio-ecological futures.

Task 2: Draft and prepare the concept note for submission to the Adaptation Fund Board

• Develop the description of the project adaptation alternative (components, outcomes, and outputs). Develop outcome statements that capture the project’s specific focus on reducing vulnerability to climate change. Define project output statements as tangible and measurable deliverables.
• Coordinate the selection of the project sites, articulate the rationale for their selection and develop a map of the sites.
• Undertake community-level consultations to explore and test the proposed project intervention strategy and to ensure the proposed adaptation options are appropriate and robust across different futures.
• Identify lessons learned and good practices from relevant initiatives, for replication and upscaling through this project and ensure that the project intervention strategy aligns with lessons learned.
• Identify other ongoing and planned initiatives for the project to coordinate and collaborate with.
• Draft all sections of the Adaptation Fund concept note template, integrating information on Adaptation Fund requirements as outlined in the template and the accompanying guidance;
• Screen the project for environmental and social safeguards risks using UNEP’s screening tool (Safeguard Risk Identification Form, SRIF).
• Complete the UNEP Quality Enhancement Checklist (QEC).

Task 3:  Processing review sheets

• Respond to Government, SCI, and UNEP internal review comments, including reviews by the UNEP Task Manager, Adaptation Portfolio Manager, Safeguards advisor, and Concept Review Committee (CRC), and undertake required revisions.
• Respond to Adaptation Fund Board secretariat review comments and undertake required revisions, until the concept note is approved.

2. Key Annexes at Concept Note Development Stage

The consultant will as well be expected to develop and finalize the following documents with the stakeholders concerned which will be annexed to the CN submission.

• Letter of endorsement from the National Designed Authority
• SRIF Screening of Environmental and Social Risks and Project Risk Categorization
• List of Stakeholders Consulted/Dates
• Any Relevant Context Annexes

CODE OF CONDUCT:

Because Save the Children's work is based on deeply held values and principles, it is essential that our commitment to children's rights and humanitarian principles is supported and demonstrated by all members of staff. Save the Children's Code of Conduct sets out the standards which all staff members must adhere to.

PROPERTY RIGHTS:

All data that will be collected should be considered as SCI properties and may not be used for other purposes.

Experiences and Qualifications

Qualification and Experience

• Demonstrated knowledge of climate change adaptation, ecosystem/landscape restoration and development issues in the context of Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
• Demonstrated successful experience in the formulation of ecosystem-based adaptation projects funded by the Adaptation Fund, GEF LDCF / SCCF and/or other multilateral funds for adaptation. 
• Experience working in Somalia would be a significant advantage.
• Excellent written and communication skills.
• Analytical capacity and ability to synthesize information from literature and consultations into a coherent project approach.
• Good writing skills and the ability to prepare a high-quality concept note.

Review Criteria

The following award criteria will be used during the evaluation of the technical proposals.

1. Relevancy of the technical proposal to the ToR
2. Reasonability of the costs presented in the financial proposal.
3. Prior experience of the applicants in doing similar assignments and the qualifications of the Key Technical Personnel proposed for this work.
4. Methodology and techniques to be applied well stipulated and aligned with the expected results.
5. Interviews.

Skills Required

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