Consultancy: Landscape Policy Accelerator Associate

This position is a limited-term contract for three months. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission for the country office designated. WRI is not able to sponsor work authorization for this position.

National consultant to support the Landscape Policy Accelerator in the Greater Rift Valley, Kenya

SUMMARY OF PROCUREMENT

World Resources Institute (WRI) intends to award a Fixed-price type contract for a consultant to Take Stock of Policies and Incentive Mechanisms for Scaling Forests and Landscape Restoration (FLR) in Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley landscape. This contract will support the Securing Policy component of WRI’s Restore Local project in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, focusing on Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Makueni and Nakuru counties. Applications will be received until December 15, 2024. The successful consultant will start the assignment on December 29, 2023, and complete all the deliverables by March 15, 2024.

About the World Resources Institute

Founded in 1982, WRI is a trusted partner for change. Using research-based approaches, we work globally and in focus countries to meet people’s essential needs; to protect and restore nature; and to stabilize the climate and build more resilient communities. We aim to fundamentally transform the way the world produces food, uses energy and designs its cities to create a better future for all. We work across several topics affecting people, nature and the climate:

About the Restore Local Project

The last decade built important momentum on forest and landscape restoration in Africa. Through the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100), 34 African countries have committed to restoring over 129 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. The focus now shifts to the pivotal task of translating these commitments into tangible on-the-ground actions. With over 70% of Africa’s land owned or managed by communities or smallholder farmers, locally-led restoration promises to be the best path for achieving high rates of restoration permanence. Indeed, across the continent, local communities and smallholder farmers have embraced restoration.

However, achieving the benefits of locally-led restoration requires coordinating the efforts of hundreds to thousands of smallholder farmers. Indeed, WRI has identified thousands of restoration champions, pioneering for-profit and non-profit organizations that coordinate across smallholder farmers, designing projects, finding, and managing financing, providing technical advice, monitoring tree growth and connecting farmers to markets. Despite their enormous potential, the enabling conditions that restoration champions need to scale restoration are either not well developed, not well understood or not well implemented. Possible challenges include a lack of, or poor implementation of policies that fund and incentivize restoration, inadequate funding, weak capacities of restoration champions and weak restoration monitoring systems.

To address this gap, WRI through its Global Restoration Initiative (GRI) has developed and tested a four-pronged restoration blueprint – Develop Capacity; Secure Policy; Deploy Finance; and Monitor, Report, Verify and Learn (MRVL). The capacity component aims to develop the capacity of restoration champions so that a strong pipeline of restoration projects is ready to receive funding and deliver impact. The policy component seeks to secure policies from local and national governments that incentivize and fund restoration for health, food security, livelihoods and climate benefits. The finance component aims to deploy finance to restoration champions directly and help other funding agencies to increasingly fund local restoration. The MRVL component aims to develop and deploy state-of-the-art techniques to monitor, report, verify learn in accurate and effective ways about the progress and impact of restoration projects.

WRI is currently deploying this blueprint in three anchor landscapes in Africa – Lake Kivu and Rusizi basin; Kenya’s Great Rift Valley basin; and Ghana’s Cocoa Belt - through the Restore Local project, a collaboration of partners led by WRI. A flagship project under AFR100, Restore Local aims to work with stakeholders to deliver support from across the blueprint to increase the success of restoration execution in the anchor landscapes, and then transition towards scaling across AFR100 countries. The project will develop an opportunity assessment and a long-term, landscape-level restoration agenda, and scale-specific programmes using approaches that are best fit for each landscape.

About the Landscape Policy Accelerator

The policy component of Restore Local project will be delivered by among other tools, the Landscape Policy Accelerator. The Accelerator is WRI’s peer-to-peer learning and co-creation programme for policymakers looking to design or improve the implementation of transformative policies and incentive programmes aimed at accelerating forest and landscape restoration while centering the local needs of income, food, and water security.

A Landscape Policy Accelerator round typically begins by conducting policy and incentives stock-take to inform the overall design and structure of the programme. This is followed by creating a cohort of public policy champions, often hailing from 3 to 6 countries or subnational units. The cohort also includes mentors, who are leading experts on various incentive programs. Through one-week-long intensive workshops featuring peer-to-peer learning and country-specific mentoring sessions, the program empowers the cohort of policymakers to identify the most critical restoration policy bottlenecks in their jurisdictions. Over the next 6-12 months following the workshop, WRI and partners provide tailored support and technical assistance for each country to work through key policy bottlenecks they had identified.

WRI is currently planning to roll out the Landscape Policy Accelerator in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley (GRV). This programme will initially focus on 4 counties – Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Nakuru, and Makueni.

SCOPE OF WORK AND OUTPUTS/DELIVERABLES

WRI is looking for a national consultant in Kenya to support the GRV Landscape Policy Accelerator in the GRV, comprising four counties - Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Makueni, and Nakuru. The consultant will conduct a policy review and analysis to highlight the existing policies and incentive mechanisms that support or hinder the implementation of forest and landscape restoration at scale in the four counties. This will comprise a review of primary government documentation, literature, and consultations with partners and local and national experts. The analysis will consider both county-level and relevant national laws, regulations, policies, strategies, technical guidelines, and other relevant frameworks. The main objectives include:

• A rapid analysis and synthesis of the national and county policy goals and priorities for forest and landscape restoration (FLR) (e.g., conservation for nature and tourism, climate mitigation, livelihoods improvement etc.)
• Take stock of and review different county and (relevant) national policies and incentive mechanisms that foster (or hinder) forest and landscape restoration (FLR) at scale, for improved food and water security, livelihoods, incomes, nature protection and climate benefits. These will include, but not be limited to policies and incentives in forestry, agriculture, environment, land, water, biomass energy, infrastructure, and mining sectors.

   What policies (laws, policies, regulations, strategies etc.) currently exist to achieve FLR priorities, and what opportunities and gaps exist for these policies to achieve their goals?

   What incentives and/or disincentive mechanisms currently exist to achieve the FLR priorities, and how are they anchored (in which law, policy, guidelines, programme etc.)?

  • Identify opportunities and challenges for achieving FLR implementation at scale through shifts in public economic incentive policies.

    Activities and Deliverables

    Activity 1, Work Plan: Develop a work plan with deliverables and a Gantt chart with the activities proposed in these terms of reference. The work plan must consider the personnel in charge within the consulting company.

    Activity 2, National and county restoration policy priorities: Identify and clearly outline the general government policy priorities for forest and landscape restoration (FLR). e.g., conservation for nature and tourism, climate mitigation, livelihoods improvement etc. This activity is meant to provide a higher-level perspective of government strategy, not a deep dive into specific policies.

    Activity 3, Policy and Incentives stock take: Take stock of and review different county and (relevant) national policies and incentive mechanisms that foster (or hinder) forest and landscape restoration (FLR) at scale, for improved food and water security, livelihoods, incomes, nature protection and climate benefits. These will include, but not be limited to policies and incentives in forestry, agriculture, environment, land, water, biomass energy, infrastructure and mining sectors.

     Review government documents and relevant literature to identify and review existing FLR-related policies (laws, policies, regulations, strategies etc.) at the county and national level.

     Identify what opportunities and gaps exist for these policies to achieve effective implementation of FLR at scale, for the sake of food and water security, livelihoods, incomes, nature protection and climate benefits.

     Identify the specific incentives and/or disincentive mechanisms that currently exist to achieve effective implementation of FLR at scale, for the sake of food and water security, livelihoods, incomes, nature protection and climate benefits, and how are they anchored (in which law, policy, guidelines, programme etc.)?

     Validate findings through consultations with government officials and sector experts, with WRI team’s support.

    Activity 4, Draft a brief report on the findings and work with the WRI team to improve and populate the database of incentive policies.

    BUDGET

    An estimate of the number of days and daily rates required to carry out the activities in this ToR is to be provided by the consultants in their proposal and must be reflected in their overall budget amount. However, once the budget has been validated, the payment of the service will be conditional on the delivery of the deliverables and not on the actual number of days worked. As such, each payment will be based on the receipt and acceptance by WRI of a product/deliverable and an invoice. All expenses (equipment, vehicles, materials, supplies, consumables, means of communication, insurance, travel expenses, etc.) necessary for the performance of the service, including travel expenses, mission expenses, etc., are the sole responsibility of the consultant and must be quantified in the budget proposal.

    Please note that WRI is an IRS-registered 501(c)3, tax-exempt organization. WRI is not VAT-exempt. All prices or quotes should include VAT and tax, as applicable.

    GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

    Required Skills and Experience

    • A Master’s degree preferably in Environmental Economics and Policy, Economics with an environment focus, Natural Resource Economics, Environmental Management, Agriculture, Forestry and/or a relevant field is required;
    • At least 7 years of experience working in environmental policy and economics is preferred;
    • Familiarity with environmental policy research and analysis
    • Familiarity with