NRT: Resilience communities and natural ressources - Kenya

Description: 

The Government of Denmark has supported NRT since 2012 with the initial support being for rangelands management. Thereafter, Denmark has given core funding to NRT to facilitate achievement of its institutional Strategic Plan of building resilience for communities and nature. 

The Danish objective is to deliver programmes that increase resilience and climate change adaptation for the ASALs communities in Kenya, which are subjected to frequent and severe climatic events that in most times result to conflicts over natural resources. 

Under the Kenya Bilateral Programme 2021-2025, the Danish Government has provided support of 95 million DKK (60 million DKK+ 35 million DKK) for the period 2021-2025 from the climate envelope to NRT aimed at increasing resilience for community and nature. Of the 95 million, DKK 60million is core funding to NRT Resilient communities and natural resources whereas, DKK, 35 million is earmarked and will be used for adaptation to climate change through sustainable investments in water and renewable energy in Northern and Coastal Kenya. 

Between 2019-2023, NRT has received serious allegations from International Human Rights organizations questioning their work and adherence to human rights and Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) principles while implementing their Projects on community land. 

 As a result of the above happenings, in 2022, joint supporters of NRT conducted a due diligence of the Human rights allegations which found no or very little evidence of the allegations. As such, the due diligence consultants offered recommendations on how the issues could be addressed by NRT and also joint supporters. The Danish Embassy in Nairobi is taking all allegations and recommendations from due diligence very seriously and is therefore planning for this technical review of the ongoing programme.  
 The purpose of this assignment is two-fold; 

1) to assess NRT’s current approach, method and model to draw lessons to inform and improve implementation of ongoing programmes as well the future projects development. Overall, the review must assist in understanding the status of the ongoing projects on the ground with a clear focus on NRTs human rights due diligence, the experiences involved, what aspects of the activities are most effective, as well as the challenges encountered in implementation and what could be done to address them. The aim is including the extent to which a Human Rights based approach is applied in the programme implementation and how NRT is conducting their human rights due diligence all the way down to individual conservancy level activities. 

2) The review will also assess the DANIDA core support model vis à vis earmarked funding model used by other NRT donors, and advise the Embassy on the most effective and efficient model to adopt for future programming. 

Also look into the role NRT programmes have played in socio economic development in this region, including an assessment of the parallel system, which characterises the NRT delivery model.

The review must generate recommendations for important learning and adaptive measures to inform suggest how NRT can work within the peacebuilding, governance, human rights based approach and socio-economic development within the nexus of climate change and the community conservancy model.

 The review shall be in line with the MFA Aid Management Guidelines (AMG) Guidelines for Country Strategic Frameworks, Programmes & Projects. Based on this, the review team will provide an overview of the project status on the ground and give recommendations relevant for adaptive management of the ongoing Programmes. This will further provide the basis for the midterm review to be held in Sept 2023. The specific objectives are therefore, to: 

· Review the progress of the Resilient Communities and Natural Resources Project in line with the project objectives and results framework;
· Review NRTs application of a human rights based approach including if NRT activities supported through Danish funds respond to the needs on the ground, are compliant to human rights and FPIC principles - and that there is community ownership and commitment;
· Assess the effectiveness of the NRT conservancy model, considering that NRT assumes the responsibility for tasks, which should be vested with the government bodies;
· Assess the extent to which the relevant county Governments and Government institutions are involved in decisions around NRT Programme activities and whether the projects are aligned to the National and County Government policies and strategies;
· Make specific and actionable recommendations if and where relevant for necessary adjustments or improvements to be made to the agreement, configuration and usage of funds for the ongoing support.

Deliverables (output)
The deliverables will be:
1. A short inception report detailing the interpretation of these ToRs and methodology to be used in undertaking the assignment – including evaluation design, work programme, data collection strategy and analytical framework
2. Initial findings paper (not for publication)
3. A draft final review report
4. Final Review Reports in UK English language of no more than 15 pages main text (excl. annexes).
5. Recommendations on appropriate technical and financial adaptive measures to the NRT bilateral programme and areas of consideration for the future programmes. 

Timing
The assignment will commence 5th June 2023 and be completed 31st August 2023.
The review is expected to include 2 workdays of preparation of inception report, 15 work days to partner project sites, consultations with relevant actors and 3 work days for write up of report. 
All in all consultancy input of 20 work days for 2-3 consultants.

Budget
The total budget for the assignment incl. fees and reimbursable expenses net of VAT is a maximum of DKK 500,000. This is in comparison with similar in-depth reviews previously conducted as well based on scope of the assignment.