Consultancy Services to Undertake Climate Risk Assessments

Terms of Reference

For Individual Consultants / Contractors (IC)

Post Title: Consultancy Services to Undertake Climate Risk Assessments of Kenya’s Agricultural, Water and Energy Sectors

Agency / Project Name: Africa Adaptation Programme-Kenya

1) General Background

The Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources (MEMR) is implementing the Africa Adaptation Programme (AAP). The AAP is a two year project funded by the Government of Japan, through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The main objective of AAP is to steer Kenya towards climate change resilient development by strengthening institutional and systemic capacity and leadership to address climate change risks and opportunities through a national approach to adaptation.

It has been designed to support the long-term efforts of Kenya to further develop her capability to successfully identify, design and implement holistic adaptation and disaster risk reduction programmes that are aligned with national development priorities.

Climate-related disasters are leading to significant human and economic losses in Kenya. Climate change is indeed increasing the frequency and intensity of disasters, reinforcing vicious cycles of vulnerability and poverty, especially in the vast arid and semi arid lands of the country.

Thus, the AAP is expected to provide support for key priority sectors to conduct targeted needs assessments and identify issues and options for improving their long-term planning mechanisms that contribute towards implementation of the Climate Change Response Strategy. These focus sectors include, water, agriculture and energy.

Taking into consideration that around 80% of Kenya land mass is arid and semi arid, water is a major limiting factor to effective crop and livestock production. Irrigation has a great potential towards increasing agricultural production in the marginal areas of Kenya. In view of this, climate risk assessment focusing on water harvesting and irrigation infrastructure in arid and semi-arid lands is considered both as a water and agriculture assessment.

Moreover, the assessment will contribute towards informing the Government’s strategy of increasing area under irrigation through efficient water resource management, harvesting and storage, as stipulated in the Kenya Vision 2030.

With regard to the Energy sector, the focus is on large and small hydropower generation as well as other renewable energy options like biogas with scope for addressing the needs of resource-constrained consumers.

The MEMR through the AAP wishes to engage a consultancy firm or consortium of consultants, to undertake a country-wide assessment of the climate risks and provide a comprehensive understanding of vulnerability in the agriculture, water and energy sectors in order to develop a climate risk management strategy.

2) Objectives and Tasks of the Assignment

The objective of this consultancy is to assess the nature and extent of climate risks in water, agriculture and energy sectors, focusing on specific intervention areas in each of the sectors. This will be achieved by analyzing potential threats and evaluating existing conditions of vulnerability, with a view of recommending adaptation management measures, and policies.

3) Scope of Work

·       Inception report detailing the understanding/ interpretation of the TORs; refining of the problem statement per sector; the methodology of carrying out the assignment; work plan and implementation schedule as agreed upon with MEMR

·       Reviewing published and grey literature on climate risks in agriculture, water and energy sectors , with a view of identifying gaps and establish baselines on current situation;

·       Assessing impacts associated with climate change and variability as well as vulnerability and adaptive capacity in the three sectors;

·       Identifying adaptive capacity gaps, and recommending strategies for strengthening such capacities at the community and national levels.

·       Conducting an analysis of the opportunities and constraints towards implementation of the identified management options.

·       Draft reports addressing all the tasks above for the three sectors

·       Presentation to stakeholders

·       Final reports incorporating views from the stakeholders

4) Required Expertise

Professional composition

A team of professionals that will form a consortium, including but not limited to the following fields; environment/natural resources management, water resources management, agriculture/rural development, soil and water conservation, environment economics/sociology.

Qualifications

A minimum of a Masters degree with at least five (5) years experience for assisting consultants/experts; however the lead consultant/expert is expected to have at leaset ten (10) years of relevant experience.

Requirement for consideration

·       Each of the team members should demonstrate expertise in own area of profession and successful delivery of similar assignments in the past five years, with a clear indication of experience in vulnerability assessments and adaptation process and/or disaster preparedness and risk reduction;

·       Ability and commitment to work successfully as a member of a team;

·       Proven track record of results-oriented facilitation assignments and consultancy experience, demonstrated by references shown as listing of the main clients for whom similar services were delivered locally / internationally;

Above requirements apply to firms that would like to forward applications.

Individual consultants are also encouraged to apply, since efforts will be made to constitute a consortium of experts.

Application Procedure

Interested and Qualified consultants should submit their application which should include the following;

·       CVs of the applicant (signed) that will work in the consortium;

·       Applicants who wish to lead the team must indicate so in the bidding letter.

·       Proposal for implementation of the include detailed methodology assignment

·       Letter of authority to appoint the lead Consultant by the team of consultants (in case of consortia)

All applications should be submitted to consultants.ken@undp.org on or before close of business 4th May 2011.

The full Terms of Reference (TOR) and requirements can be viewed by visiting the UNDP website: http://www.ke.undp.org/index.php/procurements

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