Background
RECOFTC – The Centre for People and Forests, Bangkok, is granted by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) to implement a project on Grassroots capacity building for
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation and foster conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) in the Asia Pacific. The first phase (August 2009 ? July 2010) of the project was implemented in three countries namely Nepal, Indonesia and Lao PDR. Norad has further extended financial support to RECOFTC to continue the project implementation in the second phase (Aug. 2010 ? July 2013) in four countries, including three from phase I and adding Vietnam as fourth country for phase II.
The goal of the project is the “Grassroots forest sector stakeholders in the Asia?Pacific region actively contribute to the success of REDD+ mechanism and take full advantage of the resultant benefits for local socio?economic development”. Purpose of the project: Key gaps in knowledge among grassroots forest sector stakeholders are addressed enabling them to participate to their full potential in the planning and implementation of REDD+ related activities.
In Vietnam, the project is targeting to train, build capacity and raise awareness on REDD+ of grassroots forest stakeholders in four provinces namely Bac Kan, Ha Tinh, Lam Dong and Ca Mau. The project takes cascade approach of capacity building from national to grassroots level. The partner organizations in each province either DARD or its Technical Sub?Department. The
project is also open to collaborate with the local NGO partners, including Center for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD), Center for Sustainable Development of Mountain areas (CSDM), and Center of Research and Development in Upland areas (CERDA) located in Hanoi and Ha Tinh Center for Community Development (HCCD). To address the local needs more precisely a capacity building need assessment (CBNA) was conducted in 2011 and final draft report on the findings of this CBNA was made available in November of the same year. Based on the results of the CBNA findings and further discussions with the provincial teams, 2012 detailed annual action plan of each province has been prepared and agreed upon by both RECOFTC and the
province. The project capacity building activities will be organized at three levels, from provincial down to the community, targeting forestry related stakeholders at each level.
In 2011 RECOFTC organized two five?day training of trainer’s (ToT) program for 34 participants from Lam Dong and Hanoi. The objectives of this TOT course are to enable the potential trainers of the four provinces to effectively implement the Capacity Building Programme of the NORAD Grassroots Capacity Building for REDD+ Project in Vietnam through equipping them
with necessary skills and knowledge. Accordingly, the ToT programs focused on: (1) Climate change and REDD+, (2) REDD+ initiates and Requirements in Vietnam; MRV; FPIC and benefit sharing from forest carbon trade, (3) REDD+ in the context of Community Forestry (CF), and (4) Training methodology. Prior to delivering the training programs, the trainers were asked to prepare the training material on the selected topics, which will be shared with the consultant.
At the global level, the REDD+ debates have generated a considerable volume of information in a short time, some of it contradictory, most of it complex in nature, and all of it subject to
continuous revision and correction in the lights of technical, institutional and political changes evolving through global discourses on the climate change and REDD+. As the developments related to REDD+ are rapidly unfolding, the capacity needs associated with these changes are extensive and evolving quickly, including the institutional and practical capacity to engage with the grassroots forest stakeholders in the process and provide opportunities for them to take advantages from the multiple benefits that REDD+ mechanism promise to hold. One of the basic principle of developing training manual on REDD+ through this initiative is that in order to achieve optimum participation of grassroots forest stakeholders, information on REDD+ must be disseminated in an accessible, flexible, and dynamic format that meets specific practical needs. In view of a number of efforts being made on different aspects of REDD+ in Vietnam, a need was felt to pool all the resources, and develop common training and capacity building manuals in Vietnamese, for wider use across different sectors of the forest management.
At the regional level RECOFTC has already developed a generic training manual on REDD for the training of trainers, mainly targeted at national level stakeholders, and therefore it was decided
to work upon this manual and with the help of other ongoing initiatives upgrade and revise the same to incorporate latest developments and make it available for all the stakeholders.
Moreover, since the focus of the RECOFTC’s project is on the grassroots stakeholders, it was also felt strongly that two separate manuals be developed, one addressing national and sub national stakeholders and the other for community or grassroots stakeholders. The Consultant is therefore suggested to work on the ToT manual developed by RECOFTC to further revise it
and contextualize for Vietnam for national and sub national and community level stakeholders. A copy of the latest version of the manual will be shared with the consultant. This proposal
therefore is aimed to achieve the above stated goal. The specific objectives of this joint initiative are:
Objectives
The main objective of the proposed project is to prepare two sets of training manuals that are useful to sensitize provincial, district and community levels stakeholders on REDD+, its policy
and programs, mechanism, institutional arrangements, issues, governance, methodology, etc. in the context of Vietnam.
Indicative Methodology
The methodology to prepare the training manual is proposed as follows.
1. Review the training manual developed by RECOFTC and work on the same to revise and modify to develop sub national and grassroots level training manual in Vietnamese
2. Conduct desk review of other training manuals available in forestry sector in Vietnam and elsewhere.
3. Conduct desk review of general climate change and REDD training manuals that are available elsewhere.
4. Review the training and capacity building needs assessment for REDD conducted by RECOFTC for Vietnam to address the recommendations
5. Review the training content developed for two ToT programs and incorporate the same appropriately in the manual
6. Synthesize resource materials, methodological insights, case studies and required information from experiences and lessons of various REDD projects initiative that are currently operational in Vietnam.
7. Organize interaction and consultations with various key institutions and individuals, project personnel and independent reviewers to develop the draft manual.
8. Sharing the draft manual among relevant partners for their critical comments and feedback.
Roles and Responsibilities
The consultant is advised to undertake following activities in order to prepare training manual in Vietnamese.
1. Review the relevant literatures that are available in the context of REDD in Vietnam;
2. Develop an outline for the training manuals with a brief description on the approach and methods and circulate them to RECOFTC to get their feedback and comments and finalize the outline;
3. Develop the content of the training manuals, resource materials and tools for training for each set of stakeholders;
4. Prepare the Vietnam specific case studies;
5. Pool the insights from different key institutions and individuals working in the REDD and climate change field;
6. Consult the relevant stakeholders and acquire and incorporate feedback from them during the manual development process;
7. Incorporate the feedback and suggestions from the independent reviewer and relevant stakeholders;
8. Test the manuals at the practical setting by delivering few sessions and collect the feedback from the participants in order to feed into the revision process. This should be done at lease once at all three levels including the provincial, the district and the community one.
9. Submit the final drafts of two sets of manuals, one for national and sub national stakeholders and the other for community level stakeholders.
Output/Deliverable
The key outputs of this assignment are as follows:
• An outline for each set of training and capacity building manual in English and Vietnamese supported by a brief description of different steps to be followed during the process, including content development, Type of resource material and specific Vietnamese case study, selection of tools, consultations, review of manual and its dissemination within the date assigned under this assignment.
• A training and capacity building manual for REDD+ in Vietnamese for national and sub national level stakeholders (National level officials, district officials responsible for forest management, NGO representatives, civil society organizations etc.).
• A training and capacity building manual for REDD+ in Vietnamese for grassroots stakeholders (forest user groups, indigenous people and local communities, NGO representatives etc.).
• Incorporate a section in each manual listing down the available resource materials on REDD in Vietnam and elsewhere, including a checklist of most prominent websites as appropriate.
Consultant is advised to consider following important things, while preparing the training manuals. The content, methods and tools of delivery of capacity building programs and time
frame and time line for the same are important consideration, which need to be clearly spelt out in the action plan that will be submitted by the consultant and agreed upon by RECOFTC before initiating the manual preparation process.
It is advised that for national and sub?national training and capacity building events, a time frame of 4?6 days and for community level training a time frame of 1?2 days may be
appropriate. Therefore training manuals, resource materials, tools, methods etc. should be accordingly developed in the manuals. For grassroots stakeholders, it is highly desirable that
the training content and material is simplified enough to convey it more effectively, using appropriate tools and methods.
An indicative outline of the content of the manual may cover (but not limited to) the following topics:
1. Context of climate change and environmental services (science, issues, impact, response, etc.).
2. REDD+ (Idea, architecture, evolution, opportunities, challenges, etc.).
3. REDD and Forestry in Vietnam (Forestry contexts in Vietnam, implications of REDD in different forest management and governance modalities and regimes, etc.)
4. Conditions for REDD (some technical specifications such as additionally, leakage, permanence, MRV, etc.)
5. Issues in REDD in the context of Vietnam (FPIC, social and environmental safeguards, gender inclusion, conflict, benefit sharing, etc.)
6. Policies, processes and initiatives of REDD in Vietnam
7. Institutional aspects and governance of REDD in Vietnam
8. Understanding different standards in REDD
9. Potential implications of REDD in Vietnam’s forestry sector and socio?economic aspects
10. Carbon market and trade
11. Glossary of ongoing REDD initiatives in Vietnam
12. Besides the content and other technical details, the manual should have a module on how to develop facilitation skills as well.
Duration
All matters called for in this TOR must be completed within two months from the date of signing of the agreement.
Remuneration
Under this assignment a modest amount of money has been tentatively earmarked for the activities described in the TOR. Cost?effectiveness is an important criterion for selection of the consultants. The successful applicant will sign a contract with RECOFTC and payments could be made in several installments according to the actual progress.
Qualifications for applicants
Applicant could be any individual or a group of people or an organization that clearly demonstrate their capacity and show significant experience in carrying out the activities detailed in the TOR. Applicants are required to provide their CVs of the main staff members who will carry out the work. Joint proposals with other organizations are encouraged but not required.
Application
Interested candidates should send their full curriculum vitae and an application letter in English to the following email address [email protected] [1] with the subject title: “Application for position of consultant for REDD+ training manual development”. For more information, please write to the above?mentioned email address or contact Mr. Vu Huu Than via phone number +84 (0)4 3726 4745 Ext. 13.
Deadline
The deadline for this application is May 01, 2012. Please kindly note that only short listed applicants will be contacted for an interview.