TERMS OF REFERENCE

Participatory Learning Review of the WWF Cameroon Civil Society Capacity Development Project

BACKGROUND

In 2018, WWF Cameroon launched a 5-year project christened Leading the Change Project: civil society, rights and environment (LtC) which is a sequel to the 2014 to 2017 Civil Society Capacity Project, both referred hereafter as the Project. It benefits from the financial support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) via WWF Sweden. The Project seeks to address a major constraint to building a sustainable relationship between humans and nature – poverty. Central to the project strategy is capacity development for CSOs to promote their role as advocates for sustainable management of natural resources and sustainable investments. The ultimate outcome the project reads: 

Local communities and indigenous people in Cameroon are effectively exercising their rights, controlling decisions and equitably receiving benefits from natural resources, and contributing to the sustainable management of terrestrial ecosystems.

The key dimensions of the ultimate outcome are communities and indigenous people having access to decision making forums, developing capacity to exercise their rights, generate benefits to alleviate poverty from a rights perspective and based on capacity and responsibilities to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner. A strong, informed, articulate, and pluralistic civil society is seen as a key element of the project sustainability and reflected in the two medium-term outcomes of the project framework:

• Medium-term Outcome 1: Civil societies are key actors in influencing planning, decision-making, and good governance of natural resources
• Medium Term Outcome 2: Communities influence policy and decision-making processes for improved rights to and management of NR and optimize the benefits that derive from those resources in a sustainable way

Medium-term Outcome 1 focusses on strengthening the voices of civil society and their ability to engage with policy and decision makers to influence them towards the sustainable management of natural resources, and a green development path with the potential to reduce multi-dimensional poverty.

Medium-term Outcome 2 focusses on supporting communities, indigenous people and youth to establish community-based natural resources management schemes with emphasis on the benefits that the natural resources can be converted into under sustainable management, and these in monetary or other forms such as food and materials. Where practical a value chain approach that links community production to markets is used to promote income generation. The Project supports communities, indigenous people and youth to develop business initiatives and models like cooperatives, and to engage in equitable business partnerships based on the sustainable management of natural resources.

The rights-based approach, the principles of aid effectiveness, partnership, gender, environment and conflict management guide project implementation. The project is mainly implemented in the South West Region and Littoral Regions, but also in the East - the Baka Child Education and complaint mechanism. 

The project currently works with four NGOs and plans to bring two more in 2020. Colectively the six NGOs will work with 27 CBOs and 2 coalitions. In addition, the project works with five schools (Annex 1). In all the NGOs and CBOs currently benefitting from the Project count 1751 members (1036 men, 649 women) and collectively representing 10 055 people in communities. With upscaling, these figures are expected to more than double and will be tracked annually.

WWF mentors the NGOs to deliver services to communities via community-based organizations (CBOs). For example, CAD supports the Tombel Conservation and Development Cooperative (TOCODEC) in the honey value chain, and Western Bakossi Livelihood Farmers’ Cooperative (WEBALECO) and Nninong Farmers’ Cooperative (NFCU) in piggery. In the process, CAD and the CBOs provide alternative livelihood support to hunters. At least twenty hunters have given up the trade for beekeeping or piggery. On her part, EGI supports the setting up of six functional palm oil smallholders’ cooperatives in the Southwest Region of Cameroon and has made significant advances in negotiating win-win Private-Community Partnerships for the cooperatives. CEFAID set up a complaint mechanism to document abuses suffered by indigenous Baka people in the East, and to seek mediation/redress.

Forty cases have been documented through this mechanism and the victims provided judicial and psychosocial support.

WWF Cameroon seeks the services of consultant(s) to lead a participatory learning review of the Project from 2014 to date, focusing on the project methodologies and approaches and their subsequent achievements. The review is especially intended to be forward looking, effectively capturing lessons learnt. The emphasis on learning lessons speaks to the issue of understanding what has and what has not worked well and why. The review is intended to inform planning for enhanced implementation and effectiveness during the final two years of the current phase.

REVIEW QUESTIONS AND CRITERIA

The review will focus on assessing:

1. Effectiveness
   1. To what extent has the Project achieved the short-term outcomes? How has the Project tracked results?
   2. To what extent has the Project applied rights-based approach, the principles of aid effectiveness, partnership, gender, environment and conflict management?
   3. To what extent has the project implementation approaches been effective in achieving the project short-term outcomes?
   4. What are the underlying (social, cultural, political and economic) processes that facilitate or impede the achievement of the Project outcomes? Identifying the strengths and challenges.
   5. What progress has the Project made in transitioning ESD pilot schools to model schools? To what extent have pilot schools adopted the Whole-School-Approach?
2. Learning
   1. What have we learned from the Project experience and how do we improve the Project?
   2. What needs to be done differently to achieve and maximize a positive impact on CSO capacity development, governance of natural resources?
   3. How do we share and act on that experience and learning?
3. Capacity
   1. Is the level of civil society competence enabling the Project to deliver the short-term outcomes? What extra capacity is needed by the CSOs? What could be the priorities for CSO capacity development in the next 2-3 years?

METHODOLOGY

The consultant is expected to propose a participatory methodology for the review, clearly indicating how joint reflection and analysis with stakeholders will be used to reach decisions, but also how validation and triangulation^[1] will be used to overcome biases linked to the different and often conflicting perspectives from the different types and sources of information.  The methodology should fully involve the project team and participating CSOs and include, as a minimum, the following steps:

• A desk study of key Project-related documentation (Project document, progress reports, external communication, field visit reports, ESD Whole-School-Approach, Results-based Matrix with indicator baselines and targets, etc.);
• The types and sources of quantitative and qualitative information that will help to answer the review questions;
• The methodologies for collecting the required information and facilitating joint reflections;
• A detail work plan that provides a breakdown and a logical sequencing of activities;
• Briefing and debriefing sessions at field sites and the WWF Yaoundé office.

WWF Cameroon must approve in writing any deviation in the methodology, scope, personnel or budget from that accepted in the consultant’s contract before such change takes effect. The lead consultant contracted for the assignment is ultimately responsible for the deliverables and their quality.

REVIEW OUTPUTS (DELIVERABLES)

The deliverables of the assignment are the following:

1. 1. Review inception report

The consultant(s) will prepare an inception report for approval by WWF Cameroon before they embrace the full-fledged review exercise. The inception report will provide WWF and the consultant(s) the opportunity to verify that they share the same understanding about the review and clarify any potential misunderstanding at the outset. The report should detail the following:

• The consultants’ understanding of what is being reviewed and why, showing how each review question will be answered by way of type information needed;
• Proposed sources of data; and data collection procedures;
• Distribution of roles and responsibilities among team members;
• How data will be analyzed and inferences made;
• How stakeholder participation in data collection and analyses will be facilitated;
• Proposed schedule of activities, tasks, and deliverables.
  2. Draft review report

WWF Cameroon and partners will review the draft report to ensure that the review meets the required quality criteria.

1. 3. Final review report that incorporates feedback from WWF Cameroon and partners
   4. Review briefs and other knowledge products or participation in knowledge sharing events, if relevant.

The final analytical review report should include the following:

• Executive summary (4-5 pages);
• Introduction (1 page);
• Description of the review methodology (2 pages);
• A chapter on Effectiveness, 15 pages max (average of 3 pages per question for the 5 questions);
• A chapter on Learning, 9 pages max (average of 3 pages per question for the 3 questions);
• A chapter on Capacity, 3 pages max;
• Key findings, including best practices and lessons learned (4-5 pages)
• Conclusions and recommendations (4-5 pages)
• Appendices: Charts, terms of reference, field visits, list review participants (names, contacts, date of participation), documents reviewed

All deliverables are expected in English with English and French executive summaries.

TIME FRAME

The timeframe for the assignment is 25 working days (spread between February-April 2020).

Weeks 1

• •  
• Briefings of consultant(s);
• Desk review;
• Finalizing the review design and methods;

Weeks 2 - 4

• •  
• Field visits, interviews with WWF personnel, partners and key stakeholders; preliminary synthesis; and joint reflections and analyzes with stakeholders

Week 5

• •  
• Preparing the draft report
• Stakeholder meeting and review of the draft report (for quality assurance)
• Incorporating comments and finalizing the review report

REQUIRED PROFILE OF THE CONSULTANT(S)

The review will require consultant(s) with strong backgrounds in governance of natural resources, civil society capacity development, program and project management and participatory project review.

Qualifications of the review team:

• Advanced degree in political science, sociology, economics/development studies, natural resource management, or related fields relevant for the assignment;
• Capacity to gather comprehensive information on complex problems or situations; analyze information accurately and identify key issues required to solve problems;
• Good knowledge in the field of natural resource management/civil society capacity development;
• In-depth knowledge of the role of civil society within a conservation and sustainable development context;
• Understanding of the human rights-based approaches to programming, conflict sensitivity, gender, capacity building and the social dimension of conservation work;
• Familiarity with results-based management instruments and their application;
• Good facilitation, presentation and communication skills;
• Very good language skills (English) and proficiency in French
• Responds positively to critical feedback and differing points of view

COLLABORATION, GUIDANCE AND SUPERVISION

• The consultant(s) will work under the guidance of the WWF Cameroon Senior M&E Officer
• The consultant(s) will work in close collaboration with the partner CSOs and WWF personnel.

Deliverables Schedule

OFFER OF SERVICE

The technical and financial offer should include the following:

• A brief statement on the understanding of the Terms of Reference and areas of improvement;
• A clear statement describing why the consultant is a suitable candidate;
• Outputs of two similar assignments completed by the lead consultant;
• A brief (1- page maximum) curriculum vitae of consultant, highlighting only experiences relevant to this assignment;
• An indication of daily consultancy fee rate expectations (in man/day), including tax at applicable rate. As payment for this assignment will be in XAF, interested candidates are invited to bid in XAF. WWF Cameroon has the official mandate to withhold tax at source and transfer to the tax administration.
• Copies of administrative documents - registration, taxpayer’s card, certificate of non-indebtedness (attestation de non redevance) to tax authority, …,

The contract for this assignment may not necessarily go the highest or lowest cost bidder. Overall cost and best value for the budget will be strongly considered. WWF is under no obligation to issue a contract because of this call for tenders. Bids should be in ONE file (PDF) and submitted by email to recruit-cam@wwfcam.org with subject “Special call for tender –Leading the Change Learning Review”, latest 10^th January 2020.

TOR ANNEXES

Annex 1. Partners and users of the LtC project

List of CBOs, CSOs and Coalitions