Consultancy to undertake national policy reviews to improve the recognition of the local community rights and benefits for sustainable mangroves management in the SWIO region

 

To achieve the project impact, three following outcomes are targeted:
- Outcome 1: Local and national institutions in Mozambique and Tanzania commit to and adopt policies and legislation that recognise rights of local communities to manage, use and benefit from mangroves.
- Outcome 2: Sustainable management of mangroves supports effective ecosystem-based climate change adaptation solutions for coastal communities in Mozambique and Tanzania.
- Outcome 3: Sustainable community-led enterprises are established and enabling conditions are in place to support communities managing mangroves beyond the project.
The project has two levels of implementation: regional (SWIO) and national (Mozambique and Tanzania). This consultancy will be implemented at regional level and contribute to the outcome 1.
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2. Context and justification

This project (July 2022 - June 2025) is the first mangrove project to be implemented under the new WWF South-West Indian Ocean (SWIO) Seascape Programme. Its priority focus areas will be Mozambique and Tanzania. However, in addition to those two countries, Madagascar is taken into consideration to enrich further the regional perspective.

The international initiative “Save Our Mangroves Now!” (SOMN! Phase 2) implemented together by WWF, IUCN, Wetlands International, and BMZ has recognized the key roles of those countries in halting mangrove loss in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region to maintain their life-sustaining and life-saving ecosystem functions. However, they also have commonalities in terms of issues related to mangrove conservation (in-depth assessment by SOMN! Phase 1 in 2019). The assessment suggested a set of recommendations, including that clear laws and legal certainty may contribute to a functional legal system for mangrove conservation and sustainable use. Despite the efforts of the initiative, fragmented and ineffective governance frameworks across multiple sectors interfacing with mangroves (e.g. fisheries, forestry, aquaculture, agriculture, protected areas) still remain in those 3 countries. 

Co-management mechanisms, such as community-based management arrangements, have not sufficiently benefited the local communities, and rights and responsibilities are not clearly defined. Without clear benefits and recognized rights of local communities, there is little incentive for communities to participate and engage. Furthermore, the involvement of all genders in mangrove management has not yet become fully effective. Gender equality is still assumed rather than actively sought. More support from civil society is also needed to ensure effective community management.

To address these above issues while achieving greater impact, this project will emphasize more on the adoption of governance frameworks that provide rights for communities to sustainably manage and benefit from mangroves. Ecosystem-based approaches will be applied, climate change adaptation measures implemented, and damaged mangrove areas actively restored. Policy and legal recommendations will be developed to improve coordination between multiple sectors involved in what is currently fragmented and inefficient management of mangrove ecosystems. WWF and partners will advocate for the adoption of these recommendations in Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar. In parallel, the project will build the capacity of communities to engage in governance processes related to mangroves and develop local management plans for these ecosystems. By developing appropriate governance frameworks and the conditions for the sustainable management of mangroves by the communities, the project will strengthen their resilience.

The project will strengthen community management of important mangrove areas and strengthen climate change adaptation in coastal communities and ecosystems of Mozambique and Tanzania. Marginalized coastal communities will see their rights to manage and benefit from mangroves secured, their vulnerability to climate-related risks will be reduced, and sustainable, climate-resilient livelihood opportunities and enterprises will be developed for mangrove dependent coastal communities in Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar.
This project will put in place systems to enable long-term income and other benefits for communities. The sustainability of initiatives beyond the project lifetime will be strengthened through income and benefits generated by community-led enterprises supported by a regional accelerator providing technical support and funding opportunities to achieve investment-readiness and enable the enterprises to attract the interest of investors.
Carbon sequestration is one of the ecosystem services provided by mangroves that can be monetized “carbon credit”, but the extent to which this value can contribute towards coastal community led conservation of mangroves is unclear. For this purpose, we propose to explore the extent to which national policies such as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) of Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar have included blue carbon from the perspective of “credit”. If so, to what extent do these policies consider the rights and benefits of communities.

The project takes into account the evolution of the mangrove conservation at the WIO region. Recently, the same initiative supported Western Indian Ocean Mangrove Network (WIOMN) to develop a common vision called “Regional Mangrove Vision (RMV)” for the WIO countries including these 3 focus countries. Such vision aims to facilitate the establishment of a strategic framework for common approach to conservation and sustainable management of mangrove ecosystems in the WIO region. Objectively, it aims to promote the conservation of mangrove ecosystems in the region to enhance resilience to climate change, and the continued provisions of ecosystem services for societal prosperity, in particular that of local communities.
 

3. Objectives and expected results of the assignment

As stated above, one of the main outcomes of the project is to adopt policies and legislation that recognise rights of local communities to manage, use and benefit from mangrove management. This consultancy will contribute towards this outcome by reviewing the existing policies/legal frameworks within the targeted countries (Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar). It is worthy to remind that these countries were part of the 7 case studies which revealed different aspects of mangrove governance. Under this consultancy, the identification of major gaps in the policies/legal frameworks should meaningfully go beyond government recognition of the traditional role of the local communities. To date, the mere recognition of their rights and responsibilities does not meet their real aspirations nor ensure their full involvement to mangrove management.

The consultants shall elaborate and develop specific and clear recommendations for each country and also at regional level. For this, a thorough review of existing policies/legal frameworks and commitments, and their implementation made by these countries is needed. This consultancy shall serve as a knowledge basis, upon which the policy briefs at national level will be developed.

In terms of methodology, gaining a broader and rooted understanding of the practice of the policies/legal frameworks related to the rights and benefits of the local communities would be highly recommended. Specifically, an effort should be put on understanding national policies related to rights, inclusion and justice of local communities to “carbon credit”. Surveying representatives of policy makers, civil societies representing the voice of local communities, the private sector and academia are highly recommended to complement the desk review.
 

4. Expected results

At the end of the assignment, the expected results of the consultancy are as follow:

• At national level:
  • Updated information on policy limitations and gaps related to rights and benefits of local communities are identified, analyzed and synthesized;
  • Recent lessons learned and good practices related to rights and benefits of local communities are documented for eventual sharing at the higher sphere level;
  • Evaluating national policies (Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar) that include blue carbon mechanism with respect to community Rights over mangrove ecosystems;
  • Develop policy paper (one of each country) that highlights and articulates evidence of community right, benefit sharing, gender equity and incentives for sustainable mangrove management emphasizing blue carbon from the perspective of “carbon credit”;
  • Actionable recommendations (with priority setting for each country) for better management frameworks considering recognition of the rights and mechanisms of benefit sharing are identified.
• At regional level:
  • Commonalities on the policy gaps are identified, upon which practical recommendations are elaborated to consolidate the champion status of the WIO in mangrove conservation. 

The policy paper should be logically structured, contain evidence-based findings, conclusions, lessons and actionable recommendations, and should provide information that is relevant to the overall analysis from the 3 countries. The policy paper should capture details of the key focus described in the expected results.
 

5. Assignment period

The execution of the entire contract is to take place between 04 April 2023 – 30 June 2023. The deadlines for the individual work sections are listed under deliverables in this ToR. The consultancy should not exceed 40 working days to complete spread over the three months.
 

6. Deliverables

Services	Maximum number of days of work	Deadline
Virtual kick-off meeting (approximately 1h) with SWIO core team for coordination	0.5	04 April 2023
Desk-based analysis-interviews-data collection process	10
First draft of report, which sets out the policy limitations/gaps related to rights and benefits of local communities including related lessons learned and good practices	15	30 May 2023
Virtual meeting to pre-validate the improved draft of the report which include a set of actionable recommendations/presentation of the key points of the two policy papers	0,5
Submission of the final report along with the policy paper for each country	14	30 June  2023

Deviations are to be presented in a detailed time and cost planning.
Any delay in submission of the reports/products will result in a deduction of 1‰ per day of delay from the total fees.
 

7. Eligibility/Qualification of Consultants

Could be individuals, consortium or institutions that fulfill the criteria set herein:

• At least 7 years of relevant experience related to  mangrove conservation and regional policies around mangrove governance, rights of coastal communities in connection with marine resources, blue carbon or blue economy.
• Demonstrated understanding of policy, institutional and local context for mangrove conservation, biodiversity conservation, and blue carbon ecosystem in the SWIO region, in particular in Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar;
• Having good skills in extracting and summarizing important information as well as drawing out key recommendations in written and verbal modes,
• Ability to clearly communicate key findings at high-level stakeholder events, which he/ she shall be able to organize;
• Broad knowledge on the mangrove ecosystem and local livelihoods around climate change (resilience, adaptation and mitigation), sustainability, blue economy ecosystem as well as the linkages between them and their respective international conventions, ideally in the SWIO region;
• Excellent stakeholder management and inter-personal skills;
• Ability to collect, analyze data to compile and synthesize information in coherent and succinct formats;
• Ability to plan independently and manage conflicting priorities, and work under pressure.
• Proven experience in writing policy papers at high level
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English, and good level of French and Portuguese would be an additional asset

8. Coordination and supervision

The consultant will carry out the assignment under the SWIO SBE Program Coordinator and  the SWIO Technical Officer supervision to some extent.
 

9. Application

Those interested, either as individuals, consortium or institutions, are required to submit the following by email to procurement@wwf.mg with the reference “AO-010/TNR/2023 Consultancy to undertake national policy reviews to improve the recognition of the local community rights and benefits for sustainable mangroves management in the SWIO region” in subject line delivered not later than 22 March 2023 at 17.00 pm EAT time with:

1. A technical proposal outlining:

• Supplier information
• Understanding of the request and describing the proposed approach and methodology to deliver the mandate
• Response to the technical and functionnal requirements
• Structure of the proposed team including resume, description of roles and qualifications. Template for the resume is available on the link https://bit.ly/2H2M8Ed  (or request to be sent to procurement@wwf.mg)
• Necessary relevant information showing past experience in related field (cases of relevant prior work),

 

2. A financial proposal in Euro: the budget should give details of consultancy days as well as daily rates, along with management secretariat costs. Daily rates and expenditures should be shown separately. The offer should also show tax-except and taxable costs. Where costs are tax-exempt, explanations should be provided.  (Please note that any costs for developing proposals in response to this assignment are not reimbursable)

WWF will directly pay for all expenses related to travels (if there is any), so those expenses should not appear in the consultant offer. The rate of Per diem and Accommodation should not exceed WWF’s rate and the airfare is based on Economic class.

For the case of non-resident consultants in Madagascar, the consultant is subject to the payment of the Tax on Income from Non-Resident (under Article 01.01.14.'s Tax Code CGI) up to 10% (or 5 % if based in Mauritius). A remark on this tax should appear in the financial offer.
 

10. Evaluation of Applications

An evaluation committee will review and rank the received offers.  The evaluation of the technical proposal being completed prior to any price proposal being opened and compared.
Applications will be evaluated as follows:

• Understanding and technical soundness and merit of methodology to execute the assignment (40 points);
• Organizational capacity and expertise to execute the assignment (25 points);
• Past experience and performance relevant to the assignment (25 points);
• Timetable (10 points)

The adjudication returns to the technical best offer (among those higher than or equal to 60/100) whose financial offer does not exceed the budget available. The possibility of negotiation is not excluded in conditions that the technical best offer makes a financial offer exceeding available budget.
 

11. Notes on canceling the current tender

The current offer may be canceled under the following conditions:

• Competitiveness is not adequate;
• No offers meet the requirements ;
• Received offers significantly overreach the proposed budget.

12. Conditions of the tender

The proposed work will be carried out under contract attached as an annex to the present TORs. The contact will be drawn up after the offer has been confirmed. The consultant will assume all fiscal responsibilities relative to his/her tax status. As an independent employee, the consultant is responsible for the payment of any tax that might be demanded within the framework of this agreement, assuming that he is able to justify he is in good standing and up to date vis-à-vis administrative and tax authorities; otherwise, and in accordance with the law, WWF is obliged to withhold at source on the amount of its services or fees / bills, the percentage to be paid to the taxes authorities. For the particular case of non-resident consultants, the consultant is subject to the payment of the Tax on Income from Non-Resident (under Article 01.01.14.'s Tax Code CGI) up to 10% (or 5 % if based in Mauritius). A remark on this tax should appear in the financial offer.
 
The consultant will be subject to WWF management procedures at all times.
 

13. Payment of fees

Payments will be made in three installments as follows:
 

1. 15% of the total amount of fees, upon submission of deliverables 1) and 2), and their acceptance by the Supervisor; and submission and approval of an invoice detailing services rendered;
2. 35% of the total amount of fees, upon submission of deliverables 3) and its acceptance by the Supervisor; and submission and approval of an invoice detailing services rendered;
3. 50% of the total amount of fees, upon submission of deliverables 4-5), and their acceptance by the Supervisor; and submission and approval of an invoice detailing services rendered;

 
The invoice must contain the following information: name and address of the consultant, invoice date, unique invoice number, amount of fees free of charges, amount of taxes, service rendered, deliverable and/or number of hours charged, period in which service was provided, bank details.
 
WWF cannot grant in advance honorary fees. Though, field trip expenses, in accordance with WWF procedures, are payable in advance once the consultancy contract established.
 

14. Fraud, corruption and conflict of interest declaration

Candidates have read entirely the WWF Policy for interests and the WWF Policy Conflicts for Prevention and the Survey of Fraud and Corruption. He understands his responsibilities to comply, and fully commit to it. He acknowledges he has no conflicts, as described in the WWF's Policy on Conflicts of Interest: https://bit.ly/2H2M8Ed
Candidates must respect the professional rules of conduct without any reproach in the conduct of its mandate. Furthermore, the contractor will ensure not to tarnish the image of the WWF execution of its mandate. WWF gives the right to terminate the agreement in proven cases of misconduct that can harm the WWF.
 
Prepared by:                                                                                                                    Date:
Reviewed by:                                                                                                                  Date:
Approved by:                                                                                                                  Date: