Company Profile

Rainforest Alliance, a New York-based 501(c)3, and UTZ, an Amsterdam-based foundation, merged in 2018. Together, the new Rainforest Alliance is now a $70 million per year organization with offices in 17 countries (and growing) and over 5000 staff. The merged organization has two main offices—one in Amsterdam and one in New York City.

The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities.

We work towards making responsible business the new normal through our certification program, tailored supply chain services, landscape and community work and advocacy.

For more information, please visit http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/about.  

Job Description

Request for Proposals
For the recruitment of a consultant or consultancy firm for Rainforest Alliance

Rainforest Alliance is seeking a Consultant - or consultancy firm - to develop a landscape restoration strategy for the RESTORE project, through the identification of degraded lands and the development of a strategy and a simplified participatory management plan for areas to be restored/conserved in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

Summary Information

• Department: WACA
• Location(s): Ghana (Sui River Landscape)
• Commitment:  60 days
• Desired start date and duration: December 1^st to January 30^th 2025
• Under direction of: Senior Associate Deforestation West Africa

Overview

The Rainforest Alliance (RA) and Olam Food Ingredients (ofi), in partnership with multinational chocolate companies, farmer cooperatives and local partners (‘The Alliance’) will over five years establish the technical capacity, policy implementation approaches and economic incentives to bring cocoa producing families, governments and private sector together in a joint endeavor to secure improved livelihoods from cocoa farming, socially inclusive additional economic opportunities, increased tree cover and a scalable contribution to national and corporate emission reductions targets.

RESTORE has four objectives that integrate working at both farm and landscape scales:

• Objective 1: Increase tree cover on- and off- farm in the cocoa production landscapes.
• Objective 2: Enable effective and inclusive participatory governance for conserving forest and restoring degraded land in the landscapes.
• Objective 3: Build capacity and market incentives for farmers to apply climate-smart production practices and increase benefits from cocoa farming for women and young people.
• Objective 4: Facilitate economic diversification in cocoa farming communities

Main Objectives

Landscape restoration is a key pillar of the RESTORE project. It embodies the commitment of all stakeholders to take concrete actions to effectively combat climate change and its harmful effects on the environment, cocoa cultivation, and the livelihoods of the communities involved in the project. For partner private sector companies, this not only ensures the sustainable security of their supply chains (through the promotion of agroforestry practices) but also demonstrates their ongoing commitment to sourcing cocoa from environmentally friendly and socially responsible supply chains. Additionally, the continued involvement of community members reflects their desire to actively participate in this process and ensures the sustainability of the actions and initiatives implemented within their communities beyond the project’s implementation period.

As part of strengthening inclusive and participatory landscape management mechanisms to improve natural resource governance, the RESTORE project has supported the establishment of a bottom-up multi-stakeholder governance system that involves diverse actors directly concerned with the use of forest resources (communities, private sectors, local associations, etc.) in the restoration and conservation of these resources, with strong community participation, known as the "Landscape Management Board (LMB). These LMBs serve as a lever for the planning and sustainable management of forest resources.

Additionally, as part of the efforts to combat deforestation and mitigate historical deforestation in our project areas, ongoing actions include agroforestry in agricultural plots, especially within cocoa farms, afforestation along village boundaries, restoration of degraded areas through reforestation, as well as the conservation of residual forests.

As a result of these interventions, the project is expected to achieve a target of 15% improvement in tree cover density, reduce forest encroachment by 25%, and restore 5,000 hectares of degraded land outside farms and protected areas.

However, with the decreasing forest land and the necessity for land tenure security, it is crucial to collaboratively engage local communities in identifying potential areas for restoration or conservation. Additionally, it is important to establish measures for the sustainable management of these areas, as well understand issues of forest tenure in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana within which the project is being implemented. Supporting this process requires the services of a highly skilled consultant to conduct assessments, gather data, and provide advisory solutions. The consultant will collaborate with RA staff, partners, consultants, and other relevant stakeholders to refine, support, and ensure the implementation of the landscape restoration strategy for the RESTORE project in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

These terms of reference have been developed to recruit this expertise, which the Rainforest Alliance will manage through the USAID-funded RESTORE project.

Contractor Services at a minimum, must include:

This call for tenders is open to registered and specialized consulting firms with a pool of experts who meet the following qualifications and references:

OFFER SPECIFICATIONS

The primary objective of this consultancy is to develop a restoration strategy for the landscapes within the RESTORE project in order to improve forest cover in the three project landscapes: Béki-Bossématié and South Taï National Park Landscapes in Côte d’Ivoire, and Sui River Landscape in Ghana.

Specifically, this contract will include, among other tasks:

• Produce land use maps for each village territory/community within the RESTORE project landscapes using a combination of satellite imagery and ground truthing methods
• Conduct a participatory assessment with RESTORE project communities and key stakeholders to analyze and validate land use change maps
• Produce finalized land use change  change maps for each landscape from 2018 to 2024
• Produce a narrative document that clearly identifies and describes the residual forests and degraded areas within the RESTORE project landscapes. This should be disaggregated by the extent of the supply chains of the chocolate and wholesaler partners in the RESTORE project.
•  Produce a a strategy for the conservation and restoration of residual forests (including assisted natural regeneration methods) in collaboration with the project communities and stakeholders.

Required Skills or Experience

Education

• Hold a postgraduate university degree, at least a Master's level in Forestry, Environment, Climate Change, Agronomy, Geography, Sociology, Rural Economics, Forest Engineering, Natural Resource Management, Biodiversity Planning/Conservation, or a related field;
• Proven expertise in organizing and conducting participatory workshops, as well as facilitating teamwork with a diverse group of stakeholders.

Experience

• At least 7 years of professional experience in developing landscape management plans, strategic plans, local development plans, land use and management plans, environmental studies, etc.;
• Experience in organizing, conducting, facilitating, and moderating participatory workshops related to environmental management and facilitating teamwork;
• A minimum of 10 years of professional experience in natural resource management or support for rural community development;
• Experience working on climate change and carbon credit issues;
• In-depth knowledge of environmental issues in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, including challenges related to climate change, deforestation, pollution, energy, waste management, and biodiversity conservation.

Skills and Competencies:

• Strong command of satellite imagery or photogrammetric processing to produce high-resolution (less than or equal to 10 meters) land use maps, as well as cartography;
• Experience in developing strategic documents, operational plans related to community forests, protected areas, and biodiversity;
• Competence in facilitating participatory diagnostic sessions, conflict management (particularly on land issues), technical feasibility analysis of activities, designing environmental measures, and developing three-year and annual implementation plans;
• Good knowledge of international conventions and national laws relating to the environment, forestry, land tenure, climate change, carbon credits, etc.;
• Good understanding of the process of ecological restoration depending on the level of land degradation
• A solid understanding of the ecological and social context of the RESTORE project landscapes (Indénié-Djuablin, Moronou, La Mé, and San-Pedro in Côte d'Ivoire and Sui River in Ghana);
• Experience in the cocoa sector or in landscape projects involving the creation of small and medium-sized enterprises would be an asset;
• Ability to work with senior government officials and social partners;
• Commitment to RA’s values and sensitivity to gender equality, disadvantaged groups, and diversity;
• Experience delivering high-quality outputs while respecting budgets and deadlines;
• Strong language skills: advanced level in English and French. Knowledge of local languages spoken in the project landscapes would be an advantage.

Any firm that does not adhere to good business practices or is involved in criminal organizations or legal proceedings (non-exhaustive list) will be excluded from this process