National and international agreements on biodiversity conservation and climate change have ambitious and relevant targets, but the gap in funding at the global scale still prevents them from being achieved. Debate at the international forums, such as the IUCN World Parks Congress, the COP of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), highlights the huge challenges in terms of scaling up and diversifying funding for conservation and climate change mitigation.

To improve their performances, 40 EFs have joined forces in two networks: RedLAC (a network of EFs from Latin America and the Caribbean) founded in 1999, and the more recently created CAFÉ (the Consortium of African Funds for the Environment), in 2011. The objective of the two networks is to strengthen EFs operations, by helping them to achieve excellence in their operations and practices, promoting innovative financing mechanisms and impact monitoring. Like other networks, they focus on capacity building, exchanging lessons learned, information sharing, knowledge development and innovation. The two networks and their members have matured to different extents but their synergies and exchanges are rewarding.

In the previous RedLAC Capacity Building Project (2010-2014), a working group on impact and monitoring of biodiversity was formed and has worked for two years discussing how EFs can monitor conservation status in terrestrial Protected Areas (PA). This working group decided to discuss this very specific focus because of its complexity, aiming to answer how EFs, as financial intermediators, can ensure that conservation results have been achieved as a consequence of their investments. A methodology was discussed and developed to combine different methods of monitoring available and tested by institutions in the field, who represent EFs’ grantees. This methodology for EFs combines satellite imagery, species monitoring and threats reduction to determine the conservation status of a PA. Within the current Project K capacity building strategy, there is a continued support for the discussion around M&E, including the African Funds in this new phase, and the aim of this consultancy is to use similar methodologies (i.e. working with a diverse working group with representatives of both networks) to explore this topic further. The consultant shall encourage the EFs, members of the working group, and the networks (RedLAC and CAFÉ) to share their different methodologies and expectations for the M&E of conservation impact.

This consultancy aims at developing a Monitoring and Evaluation Strategic Plan focused on biodiversity impact of the environmental funds – institutional level. The Institutional level is the highest level, when the EF is able to connect its programmes’ M&E to a higher-level strategy. A good practice to enable the EF to evaluate its institutional impact, is to align its programmes to the national and international plans and commitments (for example the Aichi Targets, NDCs or SDGs), in a way it is possible to assess its contribution to these targets. The impact evaluation level will show how the EF’s results, contribute to the broader context and observe the occurrence of the intended changes, usually at objectives and results level – verifying the effectiveness of the funds

Consultants interested in this call are asked to send the resume (CV) and a cover letter showing previous similar professional experiences related to the activities, products and required competences. The cover letter should have a maximum of 02 pages. All resumes shall be sent to [email protected] by July 30^th, 2018.  The selected consultant will be asked to send a technical and financial proposal 3 days after the formal approval of the curriculum (as part of the selection process).