Type of Contract: Consultancy
Languages Required: English
Experience required: At least 3-4 years of experience with climate change programming and human rights
Consultancy start target date: 7/12/2023
Duration of Contract: 25 days over a 3-month period
Application deadline: 23/11/2023
About ACT Alliance
ACT Alliance is one of the world’s largest coalition of churches and church-related organisations engaged in humanitarian, development and advocacy work. It consists of 148 members working together in over 120 countries, with headquarters in 73 countries, whose aim is to create a positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people regardless of their religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, race or nationality in keeping with the highest international codes and standards. 64% of our members are headquartered in the Global South, 30% in the Global North, and 6% are Global members. For more details about the general work of ACT, please refer to http://www.actalliance.org.
Terms of reference (click for full ToR)
ACT Alliance would like to engage a consultant for research in determining loss and damage interventions in programming, how to strengthen them and bridge policy and institutional gaps at national level for enhanced loss and damage response.
ACT Alliance’s structure is unique, with national, sub-regional and regional forums that bring local, national, regional and international church-related organisations to work together under the same principles and standards, bringing different skills and expertise to support each other and leverage collective action in humanitarian, development and advocacy engagement. Thanks to the presence of national ACT Forums in over 50 countries, and of its global secretariat in several strategic locations (Geneva, New York, Nairobi, Bangkok, Amman, Brussels, Toronto and Bogotá), ACT Alliance is able to bring local and regional concerns to the global arena. Conversely, global trends and development can be transmitted to the regional and national levels using these structures.
COP 27 delivered a landmark decision establishing new loss and damage financing architecture – funding arrangements and a fund. The decision settled the long-contested matter of financing loss and damage by setting in place a new institutional arrangement (the fund) and a mosaic of funding arrangements (institutions, processes and structures) that should deliver financing for loss and damage. This finance should address loss and damage in the contexts of economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events in the context of ongoing and ex-post, including rehabilitation, recovery, and reconstruction. While the scope of financing loss and damage is posited, there is a need to further understand loss and damage response interventions/activities, programming considerations, and institutional contexts for addressing loss and damage. This will be key in determining programming approaches for addressing loss and damage, contributing to the body of knowledge on loss and damage response activities, and institutional strengthening for effective loss and damage response.
ACT Alliance intends to undertake research work in three developing world regions (Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean). We envisage building bottom-up evidence and knowledge, ensuring gender and inter-generational perspectives, that will underpin and inform an era of deepened discussion on loss and damage interventions, and programming approaches. The research outcomes would be a conceptual understanding of what constitutes loss and damage activities, including gender transformative actions, clarify through programming experiences how in practice loss and damage can be better programmed, and provide reflections on ways to strengthen policy and institutional contexts of countries for enhanced loss and damage response.
DELIVERABLES
The consultant will:
- Develop a conceptual understanding on the identification of loss and damage interventions.
- Apply DCA’s loss and damage activities identification criteria that will be provided to present a mix of case examples focusing on addressing loss and damage interventions.
- Conduct an analysis of gaps, challenges, lessons, approaches, and opportunities for advancing loss and damage response at programming/implementation level.
- Undertake an organizational-facing assessment to interrogate means to facilitate an effective response to loss and damage focusing on facilitative structural, systemic, and programming capacities.
- Provide key recommendations on:
- Identification, design, and strengthening of programmatic approaches to loss and damage response.
- Strengthening organizational capacities to effectively programme for addressing loss and damage.
- Identify areas and good practice where faith-based actors have capacity (might add value) to restore human dignity, existential (spiritual) health and well-being in contexts of climate induced loss and damage.
Pre-briefing
Before starting the research, a briefing meeting will be held with some representatives of the ACT Climate Programmes’ Community of Practice to build common understanding of the assignment.
Literature review
The consultant will conduct a desk-based review of the existing literature on human rights and climate change, and adaptation, loss and damage, links with human mobility in the country/region, and resilience. Key documents produced by ACT members will be availed. Case studies will be sought, and the consultant will help the alliance understand how to identify key loss and damage activities and maximize impact in loss and damage response programming.
Workshop/dialogue with the member organisations
The consultant will design and conduct a workshop/dialogue with ACT forum members to test some hypotheses, develop key advocacy messages, and gather additional inputs for the final report. ACT Climate/DRR CCA CoPs/Migration and displacement working groups.
Interviews
The consultant will conduct several interviews with key informants, ideally climate and human rights experts, across the policy, advocacy, and programming spheres. A list of interviewees will be generated in conjunction with the ACT forum.
Intermediate meeting(s)
Depending on the progress of the research, a minimum of one meeting will be organized on weekly or fortnightly basis with representatives of the ACT forum and respective working groups.
FINAL OUTPUT
A final report of about thirty pages, written in English, will present the results of the investigation, highlighting:
- The context of the study and the methodology chosen (2-3 pages).
- An overview of approaches to responding/addressing loss and damage (6-9 pages).
- An analysis of the gaps, limitations, opportunities for strengthening organizational/institutional frameworks, structures, systems, and processes to respond to loss and damage (5-7 pages).
- Conceptual understanding on identification of loss and damage activities/interventions (3-4 pages).
- Case examples of loss and damage interventions, including discussion on cross-sectionality with development priorities (5-7 pages).
- Concrete recommendations on how to: a) strengthen identification and programmatic design/approaches to loss and damage; b) strengthen institutional effectiveness in the response to loss and damage (3-5 pages).
Sharing and restitution
The consultant will be invited to present his/her analysis, conclusions, and recommendations to the coordination team of the research, namely ACT Alliance, Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, Act Church of Sweden and Finn Church Aid. Following this meeting, the consultant may be required to review his or her report.
Tender process
Only registered consultants or companies shall be considered. Qualified and interested parties should send their tender application to: recruitment@actalliance.org by 23/11/2023
In your tender, please include:
- Expression of Interest, including time estimation
- CV of the consultant
- Justification of consultancy or company registration
- Samples of/or links to previous consultancy work completed
- List of 3 professional reference persons
- Financial offer: gross daily rate for the consultancy in USD – including administrative overheads, taxes, and charges.
Please note that only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
