Local Consultant for Final Evaluation for the BESD Project

Background

In 2018, Cambodia’s population reached 16 million, more than double compared to 6.9 million in 1980 (MoP, 2019). Accompanying this rapid population growth, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita rose from US$ 300 in 2016 to US$ 1,308 in 2016 . Cambodia has experienced an average annual GDP growth of 7% for the last decade (MEF, 2018), which making it  one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia.

Sustaining the economic growth while fully incorporating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Cambodia now faces a new set of development and environmental challenges. The first challenge is the degradation of natural resources with a decline in forest cover from 57% to 47% between 2010 and 2014 (RGC, 2015). The second challenge is a growing volume of waste. Solid waste disposal in municipal landfills has drastically increased from 318,000 tonnes per annum in 2004 to 1.5 million tonnes in 2017. Finally, the rural Cambodians still have limited access to affordable, sustainable and clean energy. Electricity cost in Cambodia remains one of the highest within the region.

To address these challenges, with funding support from the Embassy of Sweden, UNDP has supported the National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD) in the implementation of the Building an Enabling environment for Sustainable Development (BESD) project since 2019. BESD aims to deliver the following outputs:

• Output 1:  Community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) and Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES). This output will test and support community based NRM and to strengthen networks of community based NRM institutions to collectively address and solve challenges. Under this output, operationalizing the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) pilots and proposed recommendations for a national level PES scheme through sustainable financing mechanisms for conservation are also targeted.

• Output 2: Circular Economy for waste management, aims to develop policy and economic measures to promote 4Rs (refuse, reduce, recycle and reuse) of waste, raise public awareness, mobilize stakeholders and support business innovations towards a circular economy for municipal and industrial waste management.

• Output 3: Solar energy for ensuring access to sustainable and clean energy for the poor. For this reason, renewable energy sources such as solar energy offers crucial opportunities for the RGC to increase provision of reliable and affordable electricity access to all Cambodians, specifically for the poorest and vulnerable people living in rural and remote off-grid communities.

  Project brief information

  PROJECT INFORMATION
  Project/ outcome title	Project title: Building an Enabling Environment for Sustainable Development (BESD)
  Project ID	00093203
  UNDAF/CPD outcome and CPD output	Outcome: By 2023, women and men in Cambodia, in particular the marginalized and vulnerable, live in a safer, healthier, more secure and ecologically balanced environment with improved livelihoods, and are resilient to natural and climate change related trends and shocks. Output 2.1: Targeted cities and urban centers prepare and operationalize solid waste management plans to reduce environmental pollution impact from solid waste. Output 2.3: Rules and regulations formulated and adopted for forest/natural resource management and market solutions developed for conservation and renewable energy
  Country	Cambodia
  Region	Asia Pacific
  Date project document signed	28 December 2018
  Project dates	Start Date:  01 January 2019	End Date: 30 June 2021
  Project budget	USD 3,184,838.84 (Budget revision version G04)
  Project expenditure at the time of evaluation	USD 2,190,594.19 (by end of 31 December 2020)
  Funding source(s)	UNDP and The Embassy of Sweden
  Implementing Partners	National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD)

  (Note: Project Document can be found here)

Duties and Responsibilities

This Final Evaluation will be led by an International Consultant. The Local Consultant will support to conduct field data collection on behalf of the International Consultation who is not able to undertake field mission due to travel restriction.

The Local Consultant will work closely with the International Consultant to collect the information from the field, that will feed in as part of the input information to the International Consultant in his/her analysis in responding the below requirement of the project evaluation.

The final review will be conducted in such a way to ensure that the key principles of UNDP Evaluation are fully respected. The review will be independent, impartial, transparent, ethical and credible. 

The following focused scope of works and criteria are covered by this review: 

• Relevance: to assess the relevance of the BESD project strategies and implementation arrangement, for environmental governance reform.

  To what extent are the activities of the BESD project valid and aligned with national priorities the NCSD/MoE, MME and NCDDS contributing to the enabling environment for Cambodia’s sustainable development goals?

• Is the approach adopted by the project optimal, given the short project period?

• To what extent were the activities and outputs of BESD aligned with the overall objects and goals of the project?

• To what extent did current priorities hinder the achievement of outputs of the project?

• To what extent has the project considered gender sensitivity in the project design and implementation?

• To what extent has the project contributed to poverty reduction or reduction of vulnerability?

• To what extent has the project contributed to Sida’s country strategy for Cambodia as well as Sida’s five perspectives (poor peoples’ perspectives, the rights perspective, conflict perspective, environment perspective and gender perspective)?

• Related to activities and capacity level, was the programme timeframe reasonable to achieve the outputs and outcomes?

• Efficiency to the best extent possible, the reviewer will compare the institutional benefits of the BESD with the budget to assess the overall efficiency of the project. The reviewer will provide practical recommendations regarding how to improve efficiencies in future environmental projects.   

  • Has the UNDP approach resulted in optimum transaction costs and oversight?

  • Were activities cost-efficient? If yes, give some examples. If no, give some insight into why that is the case, including examples.

  • Were outputs achieved on time? If yes, give some evidences of success. If no, give some insight into why that is the case, including examples.

• Effectiveness: to assess how effective is the BESD project in achieving the objectives (outputs and outcomes). 

  • To what extent were the BESD governance structures, in particular the project support board, effective in facilitating smooth implementation? What improvements may be made and why?

  • To what extent were the objectives achieved / are likely to be achieved by the end of the project? If the objectives are assessed not be achieved, please explain why.

  • To what extent has lessons learned from what works well and less well been used to improve and adjust project implementation?

  • What were the major factors influencing the achievement or non-achievement of the objectives?

  • To what extent has the shortened time period and COVID-19 had an impact on project implementation?

• Impacts:  The BESD project aimed to strengthen MoE/NCSD, MME and NCDDS institutional systems, tools and capacities to address more effectively the concerns relating to environmental, waste management and solar energy and the overall sustainable development agenda. It should be noted that it can take significant time before improvement in capacities is visible or the full adoption of new systems/tools are fully adopted; therefore, the reviewer/evaluator should analyse both how capacity/tools/systems have been developed and how project achievements contribute to an enabling environment for sustainable development agenda. Also, the evaluator should look at possible negative/unintended adverse changes that the project may have given a rise to

  What were the institutional or policy changes resulting from the BESD interventions? Did the project change the way the institutions are addressing externalities and cross-sectoral challenges? If not, explain where improvements may be made and identify bottlenecks.

  • Where policies put in practice within responsible parties, academic, firms and local communities?

  • What were the changes in people behaviours to better address the environmental, waste and energy vision and mandate

• Sustainability: The review will assess how the project achievements contribute to sustainability by engaging appropriate Government, non-Government and other relevant stakeholders.   

  • To what extent has the BESD project contributed to promoting Government ownership and leadership in the implementation of environmental and sustainable development results? Can results be seen at local level? Have local communities benefited in a gender sensitive manner?

  • To what extent are the benefits of the BESD project likely to continue after its completion and at what level?

  • What were the major factors which influenced the achievement or non-achievement of sustainability?

• Mainstreaming: The evaluation will assess the extent to which the project was successfully mainstreamed with UNDP/Sida priorities on gender, conflict and human rights.

1.1Coherence/Complementarity

• Do the BESD project interventions complement other environmental/sustainable development initiatives implemented in Cambodia? Also, were there any significant overlaps?

• Are the procedures and coordination among Development Partners harmonized and aligned?

1.2Partnership

• To what extent have BESD project interventions forged new or strengthened partnerships among different stakeholders (Government institutions, development partners, private sector, civil society/academia)?

• To what extent have BESD project interventions fostered financial or technical leverage from other stakeholders (Government institutions, development partners, private sector, civil society/academia)?

   

2. Methodology:

In line with the proposed methodology of the international consultant in the proposal/inception report, the Local Consultant will further consult with the International Consultant and the relevant project focal person to produce the following output:

• Finalize the methodology for field work;

• Finalize the plan for field work including finalize the scope of field work, material needed for field data collection, set up schedule in close collaboration with project support team;

• Conduct field work;

• Document the input from the field work for the International Consultant to use for the evaluation assessment.

To deliver the above outputs, the Local Consultant will deliver the following tasks:

• Desk reviews

• Interviews with relevant BESD team physically or virtually

• Interviews with the stakeholders identified for field work following the agreed methodology and plan;

• Document the input data/information from the field;

• Produce the draft documentation of the data/information as per the agreed format with the International Consultant and BESD project focal person.

• Finalize the documentation of the input data/information from the field work with comment incorporated;

• Conduct review, provide clarification to address relevant comment on field data collection in the draft and final evaluation report;

• Attend debriefing session with relevant stakeholders.

Competencies

Functional competenies

• Excellent evaluation skills, including capacity to produce high quality and constructive reports

• Excellent English report writing skills

• Demonstrated analytical skills, ability to assess complex situations, to succinctly and clearly distil critical issues, and to draw practical conclusions

• Demonstrated ability to work with developing country government agencies.

• Experience leading multi-disciplinary, multi-national teams.

• Ability to meet short deadlines.

• Excellent interpersonal, coordination and planning skills. Sense of diplomacy and tact.

• Ability and willingness to travel to CambodiaComputer literate (MS Office package).

Corporate competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards; 

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;

• Treats all people fairly without favoritism

• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

Minimum of a master’s degree or equivalent in environmental economics/policy, natural resource management, development studies or related field relevant to the position.

Experience:

• At least 5 years’ experience conducting project evaluations, including 3 years’ experience evaluating development projects in the field of environmental, natural resource management;

• Proven experience in data collection, analysis and evaluation report writing;

• Proven experience in leading multi-stakeholder consultations with government and other stakeholders in developing countries;

• Previous evaluation experience for UNDP projects is a strong asset;

   

Language Requirement:

• Fluent in written and spoken English and Khmer are required

Interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at  https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=75980 more detail information about term of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your online applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an email acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Interested individual offeror must submit  the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal: Letter of intertest explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal (Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP)

3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email pheara.lek@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 2 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC).