UNDP Vietnam is seeking for 01 National Consultant for Mainstreaming Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation Objectives into Socio-Economic Development Planning and Management of Biosphere Reserve in Viet Nam. Vietnam is ranked the 16th among the Earth’s most biodiverse countries and is one of the ten richest centres of biodiversity in the work. However, the extensive deforestation and forest degradation has led to serious decline in biodiversity. The drastic decline of national forest cover coupled with intensive illegal wildlife poaching, and trading had brought over 300 wildlife species to the risk of extinction. Consequently, conservation has become a priority action in the national agenda for since late the 1980s. As a result, an extensive network of protected areas (PAs) has been established and operational nationwide with 164 terrestrial national parks (NP) and PAs, and five marine PAs being declared by 2014. However, most PAs in Vietnam are located in areas of high poverty and it is a great challenge to achieve the often-conflicting objectives of conservation and development. These parks are managed as “prohibited forests”, and often lack of community participation in planning and management. As a result, the PAs are continuously under pressures of local people, particularly poor forest dependant people in search of livelihood due to limitations on, or loss of access to the PAs. The government sought to remedy this through a benefit sharing, co-management policy between the Park authority and local communities which involved protection of natural resources while allowing some sustainable harvesting of the forest and marine products. However, this co-management initiative has had little implementation. In Viet Nam, between 2000 and 2015, a network of nine BRs has been established covering an area of over 4.1 million ha of land and water which is home to more than 2.3 million people. However, the BR network in Viet Nam currently demonstrates its limited roles in mainstreaming conservation and biodiversity safeguards into landscape, forest and seascape planning and management and into key economic and productive sectors to shift to more sustainable, inclusive and equitable development. The project “Mainstreaming Natural Resource Management and Biodiversity Conservation Objectives into Socio-Economic Development Planning and Management of Biosphere Reserve in Viet Nam” is thus aimed at addressing these multiple threats by harmonizing socio-economic development, sustainable management of natural resources and biodiversity conservation through an integrated landscape approach in the planning and management of Biosphere Reserves in Vietnam. To achieve this, actions will be taken to strengthen capacity and coordinated planning at the national and provincial levels on socio-economic development on the one hand as well as demonstrate sustainable natural resources management, biodiversity conservation and restoration, and alternative livelihood initiatives on the other. The Project will be implemented by Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and three Biosphere Reserves, including Cu Lao Cham – Hoi An (Quang Nam province), Dong Nai (Dong Nai province) and West Nghe An (Nghe An Province) over the five year period, from 2020-2024. The project objective will be achieved through the implementation of three inter-related and mutually complementary Components (Project Outcomes) that are focussed at addressing existing barriers. The three Outcomes of the project are: Outcome 1: Regulatory and institutional framework to avoid, reduce, mitigate and offset adverse impacts on biodiversity and reduced pressures on ecosystems in Biosphere Reserves in place; Outcome 2: Integrated multi sector and multi-stakeholder planning and management operational in three Biosphere Reserves to mainstream protected area management, sustainable resource use and biodiversity-friendly development; and Outcome 3: Knowledge management and monitoring and evaluation support contributes to equitable gender benefits and increased awareness of biodiversity conservation. The project now enters an inception phase after the appraisal and approval process by the GEF and the Government of Viet Nam. This is an essential stage for fine-tuning the project strategy in consultation with stakeholders and establishing a firm foundation for future implementation success. This includes, inter alia, project management structure, partnership coordination mechanism, design of work packages, M&E plan, communication plan, risk management strategy and result-based annual work-plan. A highly qualified National Consultant with experience in implementation of projects of similar type and size is required to assist MONRE and project partners to prepare and conduct the Project Inception Workshop through a fully consultative process which clearly describes the project implementation strategy and its key components mentioned above. This includes primarily the formulation of the Inception Phase Report which will be integral part of the Project document. Interested offerors are invited to submit CVs, financial proposals and other information following guidance in the Procurement Notice to: Procurement Unit UNDP Viet Nam 304 Kim Ma, Ha Noi, Viet Nam Tel: (+84 24) 38500100 Direct: (+84 24) 38500195 Email: luu.thi.trang@undp.org with notification by email (without attachment) to: procurement.vn@undp.org that the bidder has submitted proposal. UNDP will not be responsible for the missing of proposal if the bidder does not send notification email to above address. Deadline for submission: 23.59, 19 March 2020 (Hanoi time) |