| Overview : Rwanda’s “Vision 2020”, the country’s overarching national planning and policy framework to which other Government of Rwanda (GoR) strategies, plans, programmes and policies are anchored, recognizes that unsustainable environment and natural resources (ENR) management makes it more challenging to achieve development objectives such as poverty reduction. This is because unsustainable ENR use reduces the stream of economic and social benefits they produce, e.g. Soil erosion reduces agricultural productivity and makes it harder to achieve food security and reduce rural poverty levels. Thus, ENR and development issues need to be addressed in a co-ordinated manner. The document states clearly that Rwanda will endeavour to “mainstream the environmental sustainability issues in all development policies, programmes and actions to realise equitable and sustainable development. As part of the road towards realising the Vision 2020, environmental sustainability has been given priority both as a specific a sub-sector and as a crosscutting issue in national medium term strategies like the EDPRS II, as well as other national, sector and sub national planning processes. The integration of pro-poor ENR sustainability objectives into national planning at all levels serves as a critical input to both sustainability and national poverty reduction initiatives. This is fully recognized by the Government of Rwanda, which through the support of the Poverty and Environment Initiative Program (PEI), led by REMA in close collaboration with MINECOFIN and other ministries has been very active in influencing the sectors to mainstream ENR sustainability and climate change adaptation in sector plans, budgets and policies. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) has been spearheading the exercise through the Sector Strategic Planning guidelines/checklists and the Budget Call Circulars where all budget agencies are required to mainstream environment and climate change. Subsequently, drawing lessons from the recent initiatives, the process to mainstream ENR and climate change issues into the next generation of the EDPRS and other plans and strategies is underway. However, the main issue at hand is how the national, sector and sub national policies that include ENR and climate change can be designed and implemented to reach and sustainably transform the lives of the poorest people at the community level. This requires that policy objectives are translated into practical, tangible actions on the ground that sectors and sub-national entities like agriculture, local Governments and community actors use to further mainstream ENR sustainability and achieve economic and social development goals. It is against this background that REMA decided on a pilot demonstration of an integrated ENR management program named Rubaya Green Village in Rubaya sector, Gicumbi district. The main purpose of this initiative was to practically demonstrate how poverty problems related to environment and natural resources management (land use, agriculture, human settlements, health and education) can be addressed through participatory integrated approaches to generate sustainable livelihoods, fight poverty and transform rural economies in an environmentally sustainable manner. More specifically, it aims to show how investments in environmental sustainability can help achieve development goals such as poverty reduction, food security, social cohesion and the empowerment of women. To address the above mentioned problems REMA supported this initiative which includes a number of inter-linked components. These mainly include: - Provision of water reservoirs to control run-off and ensure that it is productively utilized;
- Control of soil erosion to reduce the loss of fertile top soil and retain much of the water through terracing.
- The national “one cow per family” initiative, or Girinka, has become a communal rather than individual project.
- Common collection centre for waste from the cows and also human waste which is used to generate biogas that is distributed to all the houses for cooking and lighting. The residue is then used as manure in the terraces.
- Rain water from all the rooftops is collected into 7 underground tanks of 100 cm3 each from where it is piped to different taps in the village (Umudugudu).
Similar demonstration / green village pilots have been established, amongst them a similar model village supported by REMA / PEI in Muyebe, Muhanga Disitrict. There is also a national programme with the aim of establishing 30 Green Villages (in all Districts), and other Green Villages are funded by FONERWA, Red Cross, etc. A “Toolkit on the Development of Smart Green Villages” was also produced by PEI / REMA in 2015, outlining practical steps to establish and maintain these Green Villages. To ensure effective replication and scale up of the best practices and the lessons learnt from the Rubaya demonstration project and to effectively support the on-going EDPRS II and Green Growth processes, REMA/PEI wants to ascertain the costs and benefits of this pilot demonstration project, as one of the important elements to inform the efforts of scaling up Green Villages in Rwanda. A consultancy work with similar TORS was undertaken in 2015 by a team of an International and national consultant. Unfortunately, despite many rounds of review, the result was not satisfactory and the consultancy was discontinued after receiving a third draft. In order to complete this important exercise, using the incomplete Draft of previous consultants, underlying data and earlier comments, REMA and PEI are seeking a new consultant to complete this assignment and submit a quality and relevant product, which can inform the future of the Green village programme. The main purpose of these TORs is to complete and finalize the assessment of the net economic, social and environment benefits of the Rubaya Green Village demonstration project and secondly to use the results to estimate the benefits of project replication. This will be conducted using already available information (previous consultants’ report and raw data) and newly sourced data to come up with a report consistent with standard and accepted Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) methodologies that will guide the future green village demonstration initiatives and their scaling up. REMA realises that identification of the net benefits plus effective documentation of lessons and good practices learnt in the Rubaya demonstration project will be critical to effective replication of the project by Local Government but more importantly to mobilise more resources for poverty reduction. This replication could play a key role in achieving a number of EDPRS objectives and MDGs, particularly those relating to poverty reduction, food security, and environmental sustainability and economic and empowerment of women. Application procedure - Technical proposal
- Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
- Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience in the field of UN Operations/Program and meeting facilitation, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
- Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment;
2. Financial proposal Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. 3. Submission addresses Delivery address: UNDP Rwanda, P.O. Box 445, 12 Avenue de l'Armée, Kigali, Rwanda, and Attn: Head of Procurement Unit, Or by email address at offers.rw@undp.org no later than Friday 21 October 2016, Time: 12h00 PM- Kigali Rwanda local time. |
