Purpose of the EOI:
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations.
The Community Engagement for Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) in Lesotho project is a GIZ-funded project to engage communities in natural resource management and livelihoods in Lesotho. The initial phase of the project is for 2 years with a possibility of extension.
This EOI solicits response from reputed and locally registered NGOs that meet the following criteria:
- Registered as an NGO for at least 5-years
- Proven reach in the communities of least three districts (preferably Maseru, Mafeteng, Mokhotlong, Thaba-tseka and Leribe)
- Proven experience in at least of one the areas: NRM, agricultural development, agricultural livelihoods
- Proven experience of working with youth and women
- Staff capacity to deliver complex and multi-district project
- Sound and effective financial management processes in place (ability to show audit reports for past 3-years)
- Have protection policy in place
- Have a letter of clearance from the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO)
Scope of the NGO role in the Project:
CRS will implement the above project in partnership with local NGOs, which will be selected jointly by CRS and Lesotho Council of NGOs (LCN) based on specified criteria. Selected local NGOs will be sub-recipients of the CRS grant. CRS will provide leadership, oversight, technical training and assistance, coordination, and accompaniment to the NGOs in the field to maximize results and build local capacity for ICM in the country.
NGOs will initially manage activities in the six Priority Sub-catchments (PSC) with intensive training, accompaniment, technical assistance, and monitoring and evaluation support from CRS. At the same time, CRS and LCN will be working to strengthen the capacity of new NGOs. When the project areas expand to more catchments (in line with the national ICM scaling strategy) CRS and LCN will consult on the best way forward to ensure the NGO partnership is able to cover additional project areas, either by selecting additional NGOs with a previous track record in the areas or by moving the NGOs already working under the partnership to further catchments.
Selected NGO is expected to perform the following activities:
- Conduct community mobilization and sensitization on ICM
- Establish community-level ICM institutions including community watershed teams (CWTs), innovation and savings groups etc. with close support and supervision by CRS, GIZ and GoL in Year 1
- Replicate trainings for community-level ICM institutions on the Smart Skills, NRM tools, ICM principles and measures, with CRS providing supportive supervision
- Facilitate the development and implementation of local ICM action plans with considerable support from CRS
- Train CWTs and interested ICM groups in organization and managerial skills, and build their capacity to train other land and water user groups within the community in these same skills
- Provide training/technical assistance to user groups on specific topics identified in ICM plans,
- Manage FLCs, in close collaboration with lead farmers
- Promote learning activities through FLCs, organizing Farmer Field Days and community events for celebrating successes
- Provide support to LCN in identification of ICM-related niche activities to receive support through the small grants fund
- Provide training to CBOs for implementing niche activities
- Data collection, monitoring and reporting
- Support CRS in the training of new NGOs to continue supporting the six PSCs while the initial NGO partners expand to other sub-catchments
Information Dissemination Meeting:
CRS will organize an information dissemination meeting at 8:30 a.m. on 22nd June 2020 (Monday) at Victory Hall, Maseru. Interested NGOs will learn more about the project, their expected roles, and will get the opportunity to ask questions during this meeting.
Outline/Format of the EOI:
NGOs can develop their EOI using the following format and providing the requested information under each section.
Please observe the word limit for each of the answers.
Section 1: NGO vision, mission statements and a brief on why the NGO is interested in this project.
Section 2: Please list all the NRM/agriculture/livelihoods projects that your organization has implemented over the past 5-years specifying duration, number of direct and indirect beneficiaries targeted, donor, activities, budget, target districts, and key achievements.
Section 3: Please outline 2-3 community mobilization strategies that you have used in the past in any of your NRM/agriculture/livelihoods projects, and which approach(es) you think will be the most suitable for ICM in Lesotho. (500 words)
Section 4: Briefly explainwhat 2-3 key challenges you anticipate in implementing ICM project given its scale and complexity, and how would you mitigate them to achieve project objectives? (1000 words)
Section 5: You would be required to work closely with a wide range of stakeholders including targeted communities, local authorities, district-level ministerial departments, extension workers, donors, and CRS to achieve high-quality outputs in a short space of time without having authority over them. How would you manage this complex world of relationship? Please justify your arguments citing examples from your past work where you have managed similar situations. (1000 words)
Section 6: Relating to your current or work in recent past, please describe 2-3 key strategies that you will employ in the ICM project that will help in promoting community ownership of ICM interventions. (1000 words).
SUBMISSION
Please send your EOI by email to [email protected] with the subject line: Community Engagement for ICM EOI, not later than 1st July 2020 at 17:00.