ACT: Consultancy for Research on a rights-based approach to adaptation, loss & damage, & resilience in specific national/regional contexts

Location: Asia Pacific
Language required: English (native or advanced)
Experience required: Experience with climate justice and human rights (3 to 4 years)
Target starting date: 13/9/2023
Duration of contract: 25 days within a period of 2 and a half months
Application deadline:  5/9/2023

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 149 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
ACT Alliance would like to engage a consultant for research on a rights-based approach to adaptation, loss and damage and resilience described inside these Terms of Reference

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. 

Climate change is a driver of inequality, poverty and disasters that keep frontline communities from being able to enjoy their human rights and lead dignified lives. Efforts to respond to the climate crisis must deliver a new reality for these communities. ACT Alliance has the ambition to strengthen its adaptation, loss and damage and resilience work drawing on the diverse experience, skills, and technical capabilities of its membership. At the core of this effort is the generation of evidence to strengthen a human rights-based approach to designing, building, implementing, and scaling up actions that tackle climate vulnerability, enhance adaptation, and build resilience. 

Climate action should be delivered within the purview of human rights obligations and not by any means stifle the rights of frontline and marginalized communities to a safe, adaptive, equitable and resilient present and future. The Alliance acknowledges that coherent and tested approaches can facilitate deepened and collaborative programming crucial for delivering change at community level in the context of climate change. However, for such change to respond to needs of communities, research must inform how approaches addressing differentiated impacts of the climate crisis can effectively uphold human rights in their design and implementation. Climate responses must be modelled within human rights’ parameters.  

ACT Alliance intends to undertake research work in three Global South regions (Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean). We envisage to build bottom-up evidence and knowledge that will underpin an era of deepened discussion on a human rights-based approach in climate response and elevating policy calls for its strengthening at national and global levels. 

Tender process
Only registered consultants or companies shall be considered. Qualified and interested parties should send their tender application to: recruitment@actalliance.org

In the 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.