TERMS OF REFERENCE

DEVELOPMENT OF A MONITORING AND EVALUATION FRAMEWORK

FOR THE HEMPEL PROJECT IN MBAM DJEREM NATIONAL PARK

IN CAMEROON

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is seeking offers from qualified Service Provider (Consultant) to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for the project with appropriate indicators to investigate linkages between the data accumulated and the evaluation findings for the project: “The securing of biodiversity, ecosystem services and ecological processes of the Mbam & Djérem National Park (MDNP) through strengthened protected area management and enhanced social well-being of its peripheral communities”. The present terms of reference provide detailed information on the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework development requirements and the desired qualifications.

Deadline for submission of offers Friday 3rd of May 2024.

Expected start date: Monday 3rd of June 2024

All work must be completed by Monday 15th of July 2024

1.    Wildlife Conservation Society Overview

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a US-based non-governmental organization founded in 1895 that protects wildlife and wilderness by understanding critical issues, creating science-based solutions, and promoting conservation actions that benefit nature and the humanity. With more than a century of experience, long-term commitments in dozens of landscapes, presence in more than 60 countries and experience in helping to establish more than 150 protected areas worldwide, WCS has accumulated biological knowledge, cultural understanding and partnerships to ensure that vibrant places, with flora and fauna, thrive together with local communities. Working with local communities and organizations, this knowledge is applied to address issues of management of species, habitats and critical ecosystems to improve the quality of life of rural poor people, whose livelihoods depend on the direct use of natural resources.      

WCS has been working in Cameroon since 1988 and today supports the Ministry of Wildlife and Forests in the management of three large and high biodiversity protected area landscapes across the country, including the Mbam-Djerem National Park.

2.    Context and justification

Created in 2000, the Mbam Djerem National Park covers about 4,200 sq km of the transition zone between the dense humid forest of the south and the drier savannas of the north. Since 2003, WCS has been working alongside the Government of Cameroon through the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) providing technical and financial assistance for Park management and wildlife protection. We have been successful in establishing the Park, building the capacity of park personnel, developing basic protected area infrastructure, implementing law enforcement operations, raising awareness and conservation cooperation with local stakeholders, and promoting environmentally sound income generating activities.

Despite significant achievements, the area is currently facing increasing and expanding threats both to its wildlife and the physical park integrity. Habitats are under pressure from logging (both legal and illegal), unsustainable agricultural practices, and unregulated pastoralism including both local, national, and international transhumant pastoralists, uncontrolled burning of forests and savannahs for agriculture or grazing purposes. Moreover, major infrastructure development in the landscape is expanding and increasing pressures.

In 2021, WCS has benefited of a significant financial support from Hempel Foundation to consolidate and expand the Mbam and Djérem National Park management activities over a period of 4 years commencing June 2022.

The Project goal is to Secure the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the Mbam & Djerem landscape, ensure the livelihoods of communities who live around MDNP, and implement a long-term financing strategy in which carbon, livelihood, and conservation benefits are measured by our success protecting the MD landscape. This project will precisely contribute to the achievement of four strategic outcomes namely:

1. Protection & Law Enforcement: Security in the MDNP and periphery is improved, and criminality reduced through enhanced law enforcement capacity.

The protection and law enforcement-objective aims to significantly strengthen the surveillance system of the park and its periphery where the Rangers have their territorial competency with a view to securing the area's biodiversity and reduce poaching and wildlife trafficking.  

2. Management Capacity & Efficiency: MDNP management capacity to address core threats is strengthened through negotiation and implementation of a site-specific Public-Private-Partnership mandate; and MDNP is upheld as an international centre of research.

The current partnership agreement sees WCS in a technical assistance role to the Ministry of Forestry & Wildlife (MINFOF), as there is currently no site-specific partnership agreement in place between WCS and the Government of Cameroon. One of the biggest priorities in the coming years therefore is the negotiation of a site-specific management mandate between WCS and the Government of Cameroon.

3. Sustainable development & Community partnerships: The well-being of the local populations, and access to and use of natural resources are improved within the environmental framework of the MDNP.

Local communities are more likely to support protected areas as well as wildlife species protection if they are aware of their potential values, understand and appreciate the benefits that the protected areas and wildlife can provide to their wellbeing. It is therefore one of the greatest priorities to create a constituency for conservation in the park’s surrounding communities and wider landscape to ensure conservation success, because security and law enforcement cannot succeed without a strong local constituency in place.

4. Green growth & Sustainable financing: Sustainable economic development is accelerated through green growth and sustainable financing strategies (including climate financing and eco-tourism).

Long-term funding appears as one of the major constraints to ensure a sustainable management of the Mbam and Djerem National Park Landscape. The potential for climate financing as part of a REDD+ initiative as well as potential development of ecotourism will be researched, and feasibility studies will be conducted.

A s part of the project, a monitoring and evaluation framework is to be developed for the four-year project period to fulfil both learning and accountability purposes.

3. Objective of the assignment

A consultant will be contracted to develop a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework and implementation plan to be used for assessing and understanding the progress of the project outputs and outcomes as well as establishing baselines and targets related to main activities, outputs, outcomes, and global impact including risk and mitigations.

Milestones and roadmap to facilitate mi-term and final monitoring and evaluation process to easily monitor the project’s contribution to achieving the desire impact of reducing poaching, improving community’s behaviour toward conservation, community member’s wellbeing as well as the effectiveness of the project to develop sustainable funding opportunities.

4. Skills and experience required:

The Service Provider should have knowledge and experience in following areas:

- Minimum 5 years of experience in natural resources management, conservation development management, or related field.

- Experience in technical evaluation of programs related to the management of natural resources.

- Design and delivery of robust, relevant and timely evaluation strategies and reviews of conservation interventions using qualitative and quantitative methods.

- Expertise and experience of designing and applying robust and appropriate performance monitoring and results frameworks (including expertise and experience in indicator development, testing and the data collection/analysis).

- Monitoring and evaluation of large, complex, long-term programmes.

- Using reviews and evaluation as tools for lesson learning.

- Experience of review and evaluation of conservation project, biodiversity management, climate change, ecosystem services and community wellbeing would be an asset as well as climate change adaptation and carbon emission reduction development programmes.

- Good communication skills, both orally and writing in English and French.

- A solid knowledge of interventions in the sector of biodiversity conservation (in particular the fight against poaching), natural resources governance and experience with project working with communities bordering protected areas.

- A good knowledge of forest and savanna ecosystems in Africa is essential, and Cameroon will be considered an asset.

- Gender balance in the proposed team, at all levels, is highly recommended

- Fluency in written and spoken English and French

- Proficiency in additional language(s) spoken in the Mbam Djerem landscape a plus, but not required

5. Expected Activities and Outcomes

The Service Provider will be expected to carry out and deliver on the following tasks:

5.1 Review project documents including log frame, annual targets and indicators, theory of change and existing monitoring tools.

5.2 Develop a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework and road map for implementation for the project:

The framework will develop an evaluation framework with appropriate indicators to investigate linkages between the data accumulated and the evaluation findings, outline performance indicators (outputs and outcomes) with clear definitions, milestones, data collection strategies, and frequency of collection. It should include methodologies for measuring these and who is responsible for collection. It should also clearly outline demonstrate how the impacts outlined will be measured and evidence for the evaluations will be generated.

The framework should take into consideration any existing site-specific existing M&E in place.

5.3 Set and measure the baseline.

For each output and outcome, provide an appropriate measurable baseline from which the progress over years will be evaluated.

5.4 Develop the evaluation strategy relevant to effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of the project’s theory of change. Evaluation methods to test and explore impacts should be specified. The evaluation should gather robust evidence about how, where, and why (or why not) the programme was effective and achieved results.

The evaluation strategy should correspond to the project’s operation context, learning and operational needs, as well as donor requirements. It should also be specifying how evaluative data will be captured.

5.5 Develop draft terms of reference for conducting the independent mid-term review and final evaluation.

6. Deliverables

The Service provider will provide a final report that includes:

6.1. A comprehensive M&E framework for the 4-year project including a detailed implementation plan for monitoring activities, an evaluation strategy as well as design and information requirement for evaluation.

6.2. A baseline assessment and plan to address any information gaps through survey or other relevant data collection tools.

6.3. Terms of reference for independent external mid-term and final evaluation.

6.4. Findings gathered during the framework development and review of existing M&E systems with recommendations.

7. Application process

Interested candidates, should submit a technical and financial offer.

7.1 The technical offer will include:

• A short introductory chapter detailing the bidders' understanding of the mission and its main issues.

• A chapter detailing the draft methodology for conducting the assessment; this methodology will then be finalized in the inception note. The proposed methodology will detail how the objectives will be addressed.

• A brief analysis of the mission's main risks and corrective measures.

• A chapter detailing the relevance of the composition and skills of the team to the work to be undertaken and how the tasks will be organised.

• Annex I: the CVs of the proposed team members (maximum length of each CV: 5 pages). Evaluators are requested to provide references (name and contact of a person who can provide a reference) for 3 to 5 similar projects. References can be contacted directly by WCS.

• Annex II: a synoptic table detailing the work to be undertaken by each proposed team member and their role, based on the proposed methodology.

• Annex III: the proposed timetable

The maximum length of the technical offer should not exceed 15 pages, not including annexes.

7.2 The financial offer will be presented in $/FCFA, including daily rates, perdiems and international transport. WCS will cover local transportation and accommodation costs.

The costs of the proposed Service provider must cover:

- The remuneration paid to the experts concerned per day of work.

- Administrative costs related to the employment of the experts concerned, such as holidays, insurance and other social benefits granted to the experts by the tenderer

- Overheads

- Daily allowances

- Any reimbursement of per diems or travel expenses requested by bidders and related to international travel.

8. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

8.1  Selection Process

- Bidders must be clear and concise and must address in detail and with appropriate documentation each of the points listed below. Bids that fail to do so may be disqualified as non-compliant.

- WCS may request clarification of any offer during the evaluation process.

- Bidders should not assume that they will have another opportunity to clarify their offers after the due date.

- This selection process may include a request by WCS to interview candidates and visit their office/website for purposes of clarifying their proposal.

- WCS may reject any or all proposals if, in its sole opinion, one or no proposal satisfies its criteria.

 Evaluation Criteria:

The contract will be awarded based on the following:

A technical score will be assigned to each compliant bid. A bid will be rejected at this stage if it fails to address important aspects of the tender or fails to meet the minimum technical score of 60 points out of 80.

A copy of the tender in electronic relevant version Microsoft Office format as well as attachments, must be submitted to the following address: wcscameroon@wcs.org Please include “Monitoring and Evaluation Framework development consultant” in the subject line of your cover letter.

9. Payment

The Service Provider will be paid for the amount agreed between the two parties (WCS and the Service Provider) with payments made directly to the Service Provider as follows:

9.1. 10% on completion and submission of the work plan, detailing how assignment will be accomplished with realistic timelines.

9.2. 40% on completion of baseline plan with survey and relevant data collection tools.

9.3. 50% on completion and acceptance of comprehensive M&E framework, the implementation guideline/plan and submission of final report with recommendations.

Deliverable will be reviewed and certified as satisfactory by the WCS Project Director, WCS Country Director and Regional Director.

They must be submitted in both electronic version in relevant version Microsoft Office format and hard/printed copy.

10. Timeframe

It is anticipated that the assignment will be completed within a total of three-four (3-4) weeks from the date of the signature of the contract between WCS and the Service Provider.

10.1. All work must be completed by Monday 15^th of July 2024.

10.2. Deadline for submission of offers Friday 3^rd of May 2024.

10.3. Deadline by which requests for clarifications must be submitted by Tuesday 30^th of April 2024

10.4. Interviews (if applicable) Wednesday 15^th to Friday 17^th of May 2024

10.5. Notification of the award Monday 27 ^th of May 2024