Final Evaluation UNESCO Be-Resilient South Africa Project (BRSA) at UNESCO in Zimbabwe

job Description

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Final Evaluation of the UNESCO Be Resilient South Africa (BRSA) Project: Addressing Climate Risk and Building Adaptive Capacity in South Africa's Biosphere Reserves

I. BACKGROUND
The Be Resilient Programme is a UNESCO initiative in southern Africa implemented by the Regional office for Southern Africa (ROSA) in Harare, Zimbabwe and seeking to strengthen the network of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the subregion as model sites for sustainable development. The programme is implemented through limited ‘Regular Programme' (RP) resources (core staff and funds) supplemented by around $7.5M ‘Extra-budgetary' (EXB) resources (project funding and mobilisation of other resources).

The Programme initially implemented one Regional EXB project, the Be Resilient Regional (BRR) project which targeted 9 countries: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. BRR introduced the co-development of climate change adaptation and community resilience strategies through the use of scientific tools and local knowledge in the Biosphere Reserves in the region. Within UNESCO's science programmes, it contributed to combined objectives from the Man and Biosphere Programme (MAB) and the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP). The BRR project contributed to the generation and implementation of several national projects (in South Africa and Zimbabwe) and one transboundary project (Mozambique and Zimbabwe) from different funding sources.

The scope of this Evaluation is to review one of these EXB projects: the Be Resilient South Africa (BRSA) project: Addressing climate Risk and Building Adaptive Capacity in South Africa's Biosphere Reserves: Towards Sustainable Water and Ecosystem Management. The BRSA project focuses on climate change resilience building in four target Biosphere Reserves in South Africa: Cape Winelands; Marico; Kruger to Canyons and Vhembe Biosphere Reserves. The focus in the four target areas is to strengthen the monitoring and early warning system of extreme weather events for the region, as well as the development of tailored climate risk assessment and adaptation plans that focus on the impacts of current and future climate shocks on water and natural resources, and to identify potential pathways for improved resilience. The project is funded by the Government of Flanders to an amount of €1.5M, and implemented from January 2021 to September 2024.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objectives of this project are to:
Establish a bottom-up approach to gender responsive climate change adaptation, ensuring an inclusive planning process for sustainable development of vulnerable municipalities under climate change scenarios in four target areas;
Develop national-level monitoring and early warning capacities for climate-related hazards and climate change indicators;
Provide capacity building of national and local stakeholders and technology transfer on innovative tools for climate change adaptation and monitoring.

The Be Resilient South Africa (BRSA) project is designed along three lines of action:
Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA),
Monitoring and Early Warning,
Capacity Building and Technology Transfer.
Implementation of this project is supported by core partners - the four Biosphere Reserves partners, the Government Departments of Forestry, Fisheries, and Environment (DFFE) and South Africa Weather Services (SAWS). The Project Steering Committee further includes the Department for Water and Sanitation (DWS), and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Qualifications and Experience

The evaluation team members must have no prior involvement in the design, planning or implementation of any of the activities under review to avoid any potential conflict of interest. UNESCO strongly encourages the external evaluators to conduct the evaluation with a team comprising of locally based professionals, where feasible. The required experience and qualifications are detailed below: Firm/Entity

Minimum 7 years of experience conducting project/programme reviews or evaluations in Southern Africa
Have designed and implemented a minimum of three (3) evaluations in the field of Science in Africa

Desirable
Registered in South Africa/Africa or have affiliation with Firm/Entity with presence in South Africa.
Previous experience working with the UN on other similar assignments.
16. This concerns an assignment for a project team with at least a senior evaluator who is expected to have the following mandatory qualifications and experience: Team Leader
Broad expertise in programme evaluation, with a minimum of seven years of professional experience in this field demonstrating a strong record in designing, conducting and leading evaluations including several experiences leading an evaluation team.
At least five years of working experience in evaluation acquired at the international level or in an international setting.
An advanced university degree in social sciences, political sciences, economics, natural sciences, or another field with relevance to the assignment.
Experience in gender analysis and gender in evaluation along with an understanding and application of UN mandates in Human Rights and Gender Equality. eNiM8fc D0LPS3
Excellent language skills in English (oral communication and report writing).

Evaluation Team Mandatory
Excellent speaking, reading, writing and comprehension skills in English among proposed team members.
Expertise in gender equality and human rights
Strong quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis skills
Evaluation experience in South Africa/NAtural Science Project .

Desirable
A gender balanced evaluation team with diverse geographical representation

Overall Desirable Qualifications:
Finally, the evaluator(s) will ideally have the following desirable qualifications:
Experience with the Biosphere Reserve model
Experience with the approach to management of BR in South Africa.
Experience in one or more of the project areas
Subregional experience in the SADC region
Experience with assignments for the UN

VII. DELIVERABLES AND SCHEDULE
Deliverables
The assignment will consist of the following main deliverables: a. The inception report, which should be presented at an inception meeting. This report will outline the detailed methodological approach to take on the assignment and outline when and how the activities for this will be undertaken (work-plan) (max. 10 pp. excluding annexes); b. The draft evaluation report, which should be presented at a stakeholder workshop. This report should include (a) the evaluation background, including a description of the evaluand and the evaluation methodology; (b) the evaluation findings; (c) conclusions and lessons learnt and (d) recommendations. In addition, it will include an executive summary of 2-4 pages (max. 40 pp. excluding annexes); c. The final evaluation report and an infographic showing the main findings. The report should be developed according to the guidelines offered in the UNESCO Evaluation Manual.

Schedule 20. The evaluation is expected to start in June and be concluded by September 2024 , and consists of two distinct phases: Phase I dedicated to the inception phase; and Phase II for data collection followed by the analysis and drafting phase. The overall indicative timetable of key activities and deliverables is shown below: Phase I Desk review and preparation to be submitted by June 2024 Scoping interviews to be completed by June 2024 Drafting Inception report to be submitted by June 2024 Inception Report Workshop to be submitted by 30 June 2024 Final Inception Report to be submitted by 5 July 2024