Contract Type: International firm 

Location: Kigali and selected districts

Languages Required: English

Duration of Assignment: 4.5 months after Contract Signature

Rwanda is committed to sustainable development, focusing on enhancing climate resilience through nature-based solutions (NbS). As part of the Integrated Development Program (IDP), the country is developing Model Villages that integrate socioeconomic growth, environmental sustainability, and climate resilience. To ensure the success of these villages, a needs assessment is essential to identify where NbS can be effectively applied. NbS use natural processes to address challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.

The Green Growth and Climate Resilient Strategy (GGCRS), under its thematic program area 4, promotes resilient green rural livelihoods by fostering economic activities, ensuring access to energy, water, and waste management solutions, and supporting sustainable growth in rural areas. The strategy also focuses on creating Green and Climate-Resilient Rural Settlements through Model Green Rural Villages. These villages will integrate essential services and livelihoods to enhance resilience and spatial connectivity in rural communities.

Model Green Rural Villages will house 200-500 people over 5 to 10 hectares, providing infrastructure and social support necessary for sustainable livelihoods. These villages will be developed in line with the National Land Use and Development Master Plan (NLUDMP) to avoid displacing smallholder farmers and ensure that resettlement efforts do not hinder agricultural productivity. The model villages will prioritize sustainable livelihoods, rural employment, and the efficient use of local resources.

The NLUDMP addresses challenges like uncontrolled urban expansion and agricultural land fragmentation by setting criteria for development and identifying suitable model village sites. These villages play a critical role in bridging the urban-rural divide and supporting inclusive, climate-resilient development.

Green Village promotes sustainable development by balancing economic growth with the preservation of natural resources. The IDP Model Village concept blends rural and urban planning principles to modernize rural living while maintaining agricultural livelihoods and community cohesion.

While NbS frameworks have been widely applied in urban contexts, rural-urban development is a key focus for Rwanda’s landscape transformation. NbS in rural areas can address challenges like soil erosion, land degradation, drought, unreliable rainfall, flooding, and food insecurity. Effective interventions may include planting indigenous trees, developing green infrastructure, and protecting wetlands.

Although NbS has been successfully applied in some initiatives, its potential remains underutilized in model village planning. To scale up NbS in these villages, new policy actions and value chain development are needed. Tools like the Toolkit for the Development of Smart Green Villages in Rwanda, which provides design manuals for green technologies, can support the integration of NbS in housing and agricultural development.

Building on this context, particularly in the view of enriching the current toolkits, framework and policies toward effective implementation of the sustainable and resilient model village, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is seeking to hire an international firm to conduct a needs assessment for integration of nature-based solutions into the Integrated Development Program (IDP) Model Villages in Rwanda.

The overall objective of this consultancy is to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment for the implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS) within the Integrated Development Program (IDP) Model Villages in Rwanda, ensuring that the solutions are technically viable, financially sustainable, and socially accepted. This will help the community build resilience to climate change, restore and protect natural ecosystems, and improve the socio-economic well-being of the population, while also contributing to broader environmental goals like carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.