National Consultant - Developing National Guideline for Climate Smart Agriculture

The Government of Sri Lanka secured a grant from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through United Nations Development Programme to implement a seven-year Project in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka, starting from 2017. The Project will be implemented by the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment (MMDE) with the technical assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

This Project, titled Climate Resilient Integrated Water Management (CRIWMP) will support the Government to implement integrated solutions to water management in three river basins (i.e. Mi Oya, Malwathu Oya, Yan Oya) in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka. The Project aims to achieve higher levels of food, livelihoods and water security for flood and drought affected poor communities. GCF resources will be invested in improving access to irrigation and eco-system based agricultural practices, improved community managed drinking water infrastructure, scaling up decentralized drinking water systems and strengthening early warning, forecasting and climate advisories to protect farmers, particularly women from climate related impacts.

The Project will benefit 770,500 people living in the above three river basins directly through investments in irrigation, agriculture, drinking water and disaster risk management. Moreover, around 1.2 million people living in Kurunegala, Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee, Vavuniya and Mannar districts will indirectly benefit from the project interventions in capacities and early warning systems. Under this Project, which will be implemented from 2017 to 2024, UNDP will work with a number of government institutions to deliver the Project outputs and activities and measures its impacts.

The Project covers three key Outputs:

1. Output 1: Investments to climate resilient rehabilitation of small tank-based cascading systems and related infrastructure and facilitate sustainable, climate-smart agricultural practices in targeted areas;
2. Output 2: Investments to increase access to and quality of drinking water in remote and rural areas through a multi-pronged partnership approach that seeks to replenish sources, build storage, purify contaminated water and address root causes of water quality issues;
3. Output 3: Improve community access to timely early warning for flood and drought to avoid losses and impacts on key livelihood assets. This includes the generation, coding, modelling, dissemination and access to weather related data/knowledge including advice and early warning.

The Project implementation modality includes a Project Management Unit established under the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment with the Project Director, Deputy Project Director, Project Accountant and other project staff and two field offices established in the project areas. UNDP as the responsible party for Project assurance will provide technical assistance to implement the Project. Under this, the service of a team of technical specialists will be provided by UNDP to facilitate the implementation of the Project. Further, a national level technical advisory committee will be established to obtain specialist advice to ensure integrated approach for climate resilient water management.

Climate Smart Agriculture development component which comes under the Output 01 of the project, shall be implemented with Department of Agriculture and Provincial Departments of Agriculture in the Northern, North Central and North-Western Provinces. Purpose of the Climate Smart Agriculture development component is not only to introduce climate smart agriculture practices to the farming communities in the three river basins, but also to make a paradigm shift in agriculture sector of the country in order to face the impacts of climate change.

It is therefore, of fundamental importance to revisit the relevance of conventional agriculture development approaches in climate change context. However, various agencies adopted various alternative approaches for agriculture development in Sri Lanka. Ecological agriculture, nature farming, and safe agriculture are some of the approaches adopted by state and non-state agencies. These approaches are characterised with certain adaptation and mitigation aspects in varying degrees.

Theoretical Framework – Climate Smart Agriculture

Climate change impacts are manifested through increasing temperature and increasing rain fall variability. Agriculture sector is severely affected by climate change impacts. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrated approach to managing agricultural resources with both climate change adaptation and mitigation focus;

1. Increased productivity: Produce more food to improve food and nutrition security and increase the income;

2. Enhanced resilience: Reduce vulnerability through managing exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity of farming systems to climate change impacts;

3. Reduced emissions: Pursue lower emissions for each calorie or kilo of food produced, avoid deforestation from agriculture and identify ways to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

CSA is built on existing knowledge, technologies, and principles of sustainable agriculture. However, CSA is distinct in several ways viz (a) it has an explicit focus on addressing climate change impacts, (b) systematically considers the synergies and tradeoffs that exist between productivity, adaptation and mitigation, in order to capitalize on the benefits of integrated and interrelated results.

SCOPE, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

The scope of work is to develop a national guideline for climate smart agriculture development in Sri Lanka. The guideline will be declared as the National Guideline for climate smart agriculture development in Sri Lanka by the Ministry of Agriculture/ Department of Agriculture/ Natural Resources Management Center.

In order to achieve the above objective, the consultant shall develop the guideline through national level consultative process with agricultural policy makers, development professionals from the government sector, academia, researchers and private sector stakeholders. The consultant shall work in close collaboration with Natural Resource Management Centre, Department of Agriculture.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Consultant shall submit a comprehensive financial proposal with deliverables to implement following activities according to the above methodology;

• Develop an overview of key challenges of agriculture sector of the country;
• Develop an overview of specific challenges of the agriculture sector in Mi Oya, Yan Oya and Malwathu Oya river basins;
• Compile existing and promising agricultural production systems for the future;
• Review the regional experiences on country scale application of CSA systems;
• Identify and review institutional and other enablers for CSA adoption;
• Identify and review challenges for adoption of CSA systems in the country in general, and in the above three river basins in particular;
• Produce draft national guideline for CSA development in Sri Lanka;
• Pilot test the draft CSA guideline through the agriculture development programme of “Climate Resilient Integrated Water Management Project” in Anuradapura, Kurunegala, Puttalam and Vavunia District, which will be implemented by Provincial Departments of Agriculture in North Central, North Western, and Northern Provinces. The cost for field level agriculture interventions shall be paid by the project and consultant shall not budget such cost in his financial proposal;
• Present the draft national guideline in a national workshop attended by a wider audience of policy makers, development professionals from the government sector, academics, researchers and private sector stakeholders, and obtain the comments; UNDP shall bear the logistics cost for this workshop and the consultant shall not budget such cost in his financial proposal;
• Produce the final report of CSA national guidelines for the country;
• Develop a farmer training manual based on the national CSA guideline;
• Train 150 government officials of Provincial Departments of Agriculture (i.e. Provincial Directors, District Directors, Assistant Directors) in North-Western, North Central and Northern Provinces about the CSA training manual;
• Liaise with Natural Resources Management Center/ Department of Agriculture/ Ministry of Agriculture in finalizing the guideline as the national guideline for climate smart agriculture development of the country;
• The Consultant shall make his/her own arrangements for travelling, food and lodging during the filed visits if required;
• Consultant shall pay the cost of the engagement of professional in the consultative process for developing the national CSA guideline.

UNDP RESPONSIBILITIES:

UNDP will liaise with the Natural Resources Management Center and Department of Agriculture to appoint a Technical Advisory Committee consists with policy makers, development professionals from the government sector, academia, and private sector, to guide the consultant.

UNDP will bear the cost for plot testing the guideline with Provincial Departments of Agriculture in North Central, North Western, and Northern Provinces.

UNDP will bear the cost for a national level workshop for the Consultant to present the national CSA guidelines.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

a. The consultant needs to coordinate with the relevant stakeholders and deliver the outputs;

b. The consultant needs to submit a comprehensive financial proposal with the deliverable.

Output - 1

Key challenges of agriculture sector of the country in general, and Mi Oya, Malwathu Oya and Yan Oya river basins in particular are identified.

Deliverable - 1

Chapter 01 of the Consultant’s report: Key challenges of agriculture sector of the country in general, and Mi Oya, Malwathu Oya and Yan Oya in particular

Output - 2

Compilation of existing and promising agricultural production systems for the future.

Deliverable - 2

Chapter 02 of the Consultant’s report: Existing and promising agricultural production systems for the future.

Output - 3

Review the regional experiences on country scale application of CSA systems

Deliverable - 3

Chapter 03 of the Consultant’s report: Summary on regional experiences of country scale CSA implementation

Output - 4

Institutional and other enablers and challenges for CSA adoption, in the country in general, and in the above three river basins in particular are identified

Deliverable - 4

Chapter 04 of the Consultant’s report: Institutional and other enablers, and challenges for CSA adoption, in the country in general, and in the above three river basins in particular

Output - 5

Draft national CSA guideline is prepared

Deliverable – 5.1

Technical advisory committee is appointed to guide the process that develop national CSA guideline – meeting minutes of Technical Advisory Committee

Deliverable - 5.2

Chapter 5 of the Consultant’s report: Draft national CSA guideline

Output - 6

Draft national CSA guideline is pilot tested in Anuradhapura, Vavuniya, Kurunegala and Puttalam districts

Deliverable - 6

Chapter 6 of the Consultant’s report: lessons of the implementation of CSA guidelines in dry zone Sri Lanka

Output - 7

Draft national CSA guideline is presented to a wider audience of policy makers, development professionals from the government sector, academia, researchers and private sector stakeholders, and obtain the comments

Deliverable - 7

Updated Chapter 6 of the Consultant’s report: lessons of the implementation of CSA guidelines in dry zone Sri Lanka.

Output - 8

CSA national guidelines for the country is produced

Deliverable - 8

Updated Chapter 05 of the consultant’s report: national CSA guideline

Output - 9

CSA farmer training manual is prepared based on the CSA guideline

Deliverable - 9

Chapter 7 of the Consultant’s report: CSA farmer training manual

Output - 10

150 officers from Provincial Departments of Agriculture in North-Western, North-Central and Northern Provinces are trained on CSA training manual

Deliverable -10

Three brief training reports including the attendance sheets

Output - 11

The CSA guideline produced by the consultant is accepted as the national CSA guideline by NRMC and the Department of Agriculture/ Ministry of Agriculture

Deliverable - 11

A formal communication is made by NRMC/ Ministry of Agriculture/ Department of Agriculture to the Provincial Directors of Agriculture to use CSA national guidelines

TIMEFRAME:

The envisaged time frame of the Consultancy is the period of 15th March 2018 to 14th March 2019.

CONSULTANT’S PROFILE:

The prospective Consultant should have:

COMPETENCIES

• Ability to communicate effectively to varied audiences;
• Good report writing and presentation skills;
• Ability to work with different stakeholders and meet tight deadlines;
• Familiarity with community-based development approaches;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Problem solving and analytical capacities;
• Actively work towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills Results;
• Knowledge and experience on Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Smart Agriculture.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Master Degree or equivalent in the areas of Agriculture, Climate change, Environment, or related field Experience;
• Minimum of 15 years’ experience in senior managerial positions in agriculture sector;
• Excellent written and spoken knowledge of English;
• Fluency in Sinhala and/or Tamil is an additional requirement.

HOW TO APPLY

To apply please access UNDP Jobs site http://jobs.undp.org .

The application should contain:

Cover letter explaining why you are the most suitable candidate for the advertised position

• Updated CV to include qualifications/competencies and relevant past experience in similar assignments and contact details of 2 professional referees who can certify your competencies, professionalism, quality of writing, presentation and overall suitability to this TOR;
• Individual Consultants will be evaluated based on a combination of factors including CV, interview and financial proposal, and the offer which gives the best value for money for the UNDP will be selected;
• Please send the Financial Proposal separately to the following e-mail address: procurement.lk@undp.org stating the vacancy number/position in the subject line.

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL

All Inclusive lump sum Fee: LKR

Amount in words:(RS)

Note: Payments will be based on invoices on carry out the duties/responsibilities i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR and certification of acceptance by the UNDP. The applicant must factor in all possible costs in his/her “All Inclusive Lump Sum Fee”. The financial proposal should include his/her consultancy and professional fee, honorarium, communication cost such as telephone/internet usage, printing cost, return travel from home to office, ad-hoc costs, stationery costs, and any other foreseeable costs in this exercise. No costs other than what has been indicated in the financial proposal will be paid or reimbursed to the consultant. The UNDP will only pay for travel and accommodation outside of North Western Province (Duty Station) outside of this TOR on actual basis and on submission of original bills/invoices and on prior agreement with UNDP officials.

For an Individual Contractor who is of 62 years of age or older, and on an assignment requiring travel, be it for the purpose of arriving at the duty station or as an integral duty required under the TOR, a full medical examination and statement of fitness to work must be provided.Such medical examination costs must be factored in to the financial proposal above.

PAYMENT FOR SERVICES

Payments will be based on milestones certified by the Technical Advisor, UNDP.

Payment Milestones will be as follows:

Installment

1. 10% of the total payment shall be made upon the completion of deliverable 1 & 2;

2. 10% of the total payment shall be made upon the completion of deliverable 3, 4 and 5.1;

3. 30% of the total payment shall be made upon the completion of deliverable 5.2;

4. 25% of the total payment shall be made upon the completion of deliverable 6 and 7;

5. 25% of the total payment shall be made upon the completion of deliverable 8, 9,10 and 11.