Request for Proposal for Consultancy services on Climate Justice Audit

Terms of Reference

Introduction

Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation in partnership with OXFAM is implementing the African Activists for Climate Justice (AACJ) project. The African Activists for Climate Justice is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA). It is being implemented in Eight (8) African countries by five (5) consortium members which include; Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) as lead, OXFAM, Africa Youth Commission (AYC), FEMNET and Natural Justice. The project’s goal is to amplify and unite the voices in Africa demanding that women, youth, local and indigenous communities in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia and South Africa can defend and realize their human rights and live a decent and dignified life in a healthy and sustainable environment, within the context of the climate emergency. The project has a strategic objective to build a strong and inclusive African movement that mobilizes citizens, companies and governments to advance climate justice.

The project will be achieving its strategic objective through the following pathways

1. Pathway 1: Strengthening climate movements which are driven by women and youth and connected with global movements.
2. Pathway 2: Developing and spreading African climate justice narratives
3. Pathway 3: Empowering communities and individuals to claim and defend their social and environmental rights.
4. Pathway 4: Scoping and scaling community-based best practices that strengthen adaptive capacities of climate frontline communities.
5. Pathway 5: Increasing political will of decision-makers (national and international) to support policies that advance climate justice.

Justification of the Consultancy

The AACJ project recognizes the need to scope and scale community-based best practices as highlighted through Pathway 4. Consequently, it is imperative to identify frontline communities and their adaptive capacities to climate change impact through climate justice audit. The climate justice audit will form the baseline assessment for the AACJ project implementation framework.

Climate Justice Audit

“Climate justice” is a term, and more than that a movement, that acknowledges climate change can have differing social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on underprivileged populations. Climate change impacts exacerbate inequitable social conditions.

The challenges facing poor local and marginalized communities in Nigeria are multiple and complex ranging from economic crises, to environmental degradation, to natural disasters, and violent conflicts, all of which are increasing poor people’s vulnerability and posing significant challenges to securing their livelihoods. Climate change exacerbates the problem further by creating an additional layer of uncertainty and risk for vulnerable communities to deal with, increasing the severity and frequency of disasters and jeopardizing development gains made to date. If drastic warning signals and/or measures are not put in place the cost of ignoring these impacts will soon become impossible to meet.

Climate justice begins with recognizing key groups are differently affected by climate change. There is therefore the urgent need to address these inequities head-on through long-term resilience building and adaptation strategies.  To achieve this, a climate justice audit is required in assessing the degree of the social economic impact on the different categories of people within the society and helps to provide information for identifying measures to adapt to climate change impacts and build resilience. It enables practitioners and decision-makers to identify the most vulnerable areas, sectors and social groups. In turn, this means climate change adaptation options targeted at specified contexts can be developed and implemented.

Objectives

The climate justice audit has the following specific objectives

•  Identify policy and funding gaps, needs and opportunities in states and what the government has done in the past decade to address these needs.
• To inform the development of a five-year plan with monitoring and tracking indicators
• Identify the vulnerability of human populations and natural systems to climate and variability in the target communities.
• Provide opportunities for promoting wider resilience and adaptation to climate change.

Scope of Consultancy

The consultant is expected to carryout a climate justice audit of communities, Civil Society Organisations, businesses, Local government in 13 LGAs of Nasarawa State.

Timeframe

The consultant is expected to complete this task within 21 days after the day of signing the contract.

Methodology

The Climate Justice Audit process involves a systematic and documented procedure of preparations, actual auditing and post audit. Climate Justice Audit involves 3 critical process a Pre- Audit Process, the Audit and a Post audit activity.

Pre- Audit Process

This Step helps the auditors get to know the areas to audit and the methodology to be adopted.

• Selection of Team members
• Selection of areas to be audited and critical stakeholders to engage.
• Get an overview of the climate change-related problem and its impacts on the community members, CSOs, Companies, local and State Government.
• Identification of relevant audit topics and prioritize among them in order to define audit objectives.

The Audit

The approach is a Participatory Climate Justice Audit Process. This involves the collection data through Focus Group Discussions (FGD), use of questionnaires, surveys and interviews of all stakeholders in the state, local government and communities.   The key to success of a Climate Justice Audit is the involvement of all stakeholders’ (youths, women and girls, men and people with special needs).

STEP 1:

Carry out an audit of Local and State government to Understand the government’s response to climate change.

The focus here is on but not limited to the presence or not of the State and local government climate policy, budgetary provisions and climate related projects and the availability or not of climate unit/officers, emergency response plans etc.

This Step will help auditors known and understand the local and state government’s response and an overview of the policies and instruments to analyzing the risks related to the government’s response to climate change.

STEP 2:

 Conduct an audit of Community members to ascertain the level of understanding on/knowledge about climate change, as well as thesocial, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on climate change on the individual: women, girls, boys’ men and persons with disabilities.

STEP 3

Conduct an audit of small businesses, companies and the private sector to ascertain their level of environmental consciousness in the product/services they deliver. This will include an assessment of businesses’ environmental policies, Corporate Social Responsibility and a commitment to provide environmental conscious products and services.

Post Audit Activities

• Review of the audit exercise, check and test the data collected
• Evaluation and interpretation of the data
• Preparation of reports

Deliverables

• Comprehensive climate audit justice audit report covering all Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
• A database of responses (Preferably in excel sheet format)

Selection Criteria

We are looking for an organisation with the following qualifications:

• The team lead or individual must possess a postgraduate degree in Climate Change, peace and conflict resolution, environmental management, sociology or related disciplines.
• Proven experience in community climate change research
• Demonstrable capacities for carrying out the scope of this consultancy
• Be conversant with application of cross-cutting themes such as gender mainstreaming.
• Have experience working in communities in Nigeria.
• Possess data management and data analysis skills.

How to apply

Applicants who meet the above requirement and wishing to submit a proposal should submit information including:

1. Proposed technical proposal (with details how climate justice audit tools will be administered).
2. Financial proposal
3. CV demonstrating relevant experience and skills including previous experience in community climate change research and data analytics.
4. Name and contact details for at least two referees

Submission:

Completed proposals (technical) and (financial) should be submitted to info@gifsep4climate.org and copy i.joseph@gifsep4climate.org . Deadline Friday, 15^th April, 2022 at 10am.