Consultancy – Preparation, coordination, and implementation of the FSC-IF and IPARD Internal Capacity Development Plan
BACKGROUND
In 2019, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) established the FSC Indigenous Foundation (FSC-IF) as an operational office of the Permanent Indigenous Peoples Committee (PIPC). FSC-IF is a private interest foundation in accordance with Law No. 25 of June 12, 1995 of the Republic of Panama. The mission of FSC-IF is to unlock the enabling environment to secure the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to promote sustainable forest-based solutions within the 300 million hectares of Indigenous forests on the planet. The vision is that Indigenous Peoples’ global values, rights, livelihoods, ecosystem services, natural capital and territories are recognized and incorporated into forest governance, climate change governance and market systems.
Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance for Rights and Development
The FSC-IF is the implementing partner of the five-year Global Development Alliance Program funded by USAID and FSC: Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance for Rights and Development (IPARD). IPARD is guided by three development objectives:
- Objective 1: Organize and convene a capacity building program for Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and stakeholders;
- Objective 2: To foster an enabling environment for the recognition, effective participation and joint decision-making of Indigenous Peoples in matters affecting them; and
- Objective 3: Promote the sustainable development of Indigenous Peoples based on sustainable economic models.
IPARD uses three interconnected approaches to support Indigenous Peoples in overcoming their development challenges:
A. Multi-sectoral approach (MSA): Under the strategic direction of the IPARD Steering Committee (SC), IPARD convenes and draws on the expertise of multiple sectors. This approach ensures that IPARD takes into account the needs of Indigenous communities across a wide range of sectors. Building on the MSA, IPARD will bring together diverse technical partners to support cross-sectoral projects that achieve IPARD’s development objectives.
B. Country Focused Approach (CFA): IPARD’s programmatic strategy is guided by a country-focused approach, driven by the specific country contexts related to Indigenous Peoples. IPARD applies a structured process to identify, assess and select countries to target its programs. The FSC IF works in conjunction with the SC, and according to MSA guidelines, to select countries and identify key priorities and strategies.
C. Indigenous Project Management Approach (IPMA): Leveraging FSC-IF’s network and relationships with Indigenous leaders and organizations around the world, IPARD pursues ongoing dialogue, consultation and feedback with Indigenous Peoples to inform the program. IPARD supports a forum through which FSC IF serves as a bridge between Indigenous Peoples, technical partners, national governments and the private sector. IPARD invests in the preservation of best practices and effective approaches and methodologies to ensure strategic cohesion of partnerships at various levels.
Through these three approaches, IPARD aims to empower Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and catalyze an enabling environment in which Indigenous Peoples can pursue their development.
CONTEXT
The members of the FSC-IF and IPARD are professionals with a long history and experience in a variety of issues. In order to strengthen the team’s knowledge and skills on Indigenous issues and critical issues of global importance to Indigenous Peoples, FSC-IF and IPARD identified the most important topics to be included in an Internal Capacity Development Plan (ICDP). The ICDP was developed based on consultations with the team, the experience of the team through exchanges with Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and experts from different organizations which helped us identify key issues and areas of competencies essential for working with Indigenous Peoples. The internal capacity development process initiated in the first year of the Program and, in this third year, IPARD expects to continue the implementation of internal capacity development initiatives, this time, with the support of an organization with internal capacity and flexibility to bring in external experts. The external experts will provide complementary expertise to the contracted organization to prepare, procure, organize and deliver multiple modules, as outlined in the ICDP topics included as Annex 1, in a format and structure that can serve to develop the capacity of the growing FSC-IF staff, and even other partners and stakeholders.
FSC-IF is looking for an organization with internal and aggregation capacity to act as the main leader to bring together the best expertise required to prepare the training modules included in Annex 1.
OBJECTIVES OF THE ACTIVITY
General Objective
Support FSC-IF and IPARD staff in the implementation of the Internal Capacity Development Plan (see the ICDP Plan and its annex 1 included as part of these SOW) in order to strengthen the human resources of the FSC-IF current team, future team members as well as other partners and stakeholders.
Specific objectives:
- Develop integrated training modules with academic and curricular coherence on the topics included in Annex 1 to strengthen the capacities of the current and future FSC-IF staff.
- Prepare and integrate the training modules into an online platform (in IPARD’s Virtual Learning Database which will have an e-learning module in moodle) so that they can be used by the FSC-IF team and other stakeholders in the future.
Illustrative activities:
- Convene a group of experts on Indigenous Peoples to ensure that all topics covered in Annex 1 are addressed through in-house and external experts if necessary.
- Present a proposal to the FSC-IF on how to best structure and organize the modules to achieve the greatest impact.
- Select the best expert(s) and organization(s) (if applicable) to prepare and deliver the modules in the most appropriate format (modules should be no longer than 4 hours). The final decision on how many hours to allocate to each module will be agreed with the FSC-IF team as proposed by the proponent.
- Organize the development and delivery of modules according to the plan.
- Prepare and deliver the ICDP modules with the objective of making them available to another group of people in the Foundation through the FSC-IF online platform (the Virtual Learning Database).
- For the execution of the training program, the coordination will fall under the leader of the Capacity Development and Inclusion Program Lead.
- Provide the online platform to deliver the modules (zoom or other platform).
- Prepare a schedule to deliver the modules for all participants with the support of the Capacity Development and Inclusion Program Lead to ensure it fits the team´s agenda.
- Implement the ICDP in coordination with the IPARD team through an agreed schedule with a timetable to be executed until June 30, 2023.
Eligibility and minimum requirements
- At least three (3) projects related to the implementation of training plans for development institutions.
- Extensive experience in issues related to Indigenous Peoples and in the preparation of training courses on Indigenous Peoples issues is a requirement.
- Demonstrated experience in the preparation of webinars/seminars/courses.
- Experience in training for global interdisciplinary groups.
- Experience in the preparation of online modules for web platforms.
- Demonstrated integrity, sensitivity and adaptability to culture, gender, religion and age.
- Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback.
Deadline for submission of the proposal:
The contracted organization must submit a technical and financial proposal sending both to procurement.fscif@fsc.org before November 13, 5:00 p.m. GMT-5 – Panama.