The E4Impact Foundation is part of a consortium implementing “Support to Resilience for Sustainable Livelihoods” project in West Pokot County that is funded by the European Union. The overall objective of the Project is to contribute towards increased resilience of communities to drought and other effects of climate change in ASAL areas of Kenya.

The specific objectives of the project are: –

1. to enhance food and nutrition security of vulnerable households, especially for women and children in West Pokot County.
2. to generate sustainable livelihoods and protect productive assets in West Pokot County.

The Expected Output of the project.

• ER1: West Pokot County with productive, climate resilient and nutrition sensitive agriculture and livestock production strategies and measures implemented
• ER2: West Pokot County with strengthened key productive household assets and community investments that are sustainably protected and safeguarded against recurrent droughts and the effects of climate change and recovery capacities
• ER3: West Pokot County with strengthened administrative services, cross-sectoral collaboration and local livelihood initiatives

 

E4Impact is implementing activities related to strengthening the resilience of pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities through entrepreneurship, links to markets and development of value chains, and lobbying West Pokot County to incorporate climate-smart technologies for strengthening resilience. The action is built on a multi-sectoral demonstration approach which leverages on the existing presence of two community conservancies in Pellow and Masol and a total of 10 wards enclosed in their belt.

ABOUT THE CONSULTANCY

E4Impact Foundation is currently seeking to hire a consultant to support with promotion of the use of climate smart technologies and integrate modern sciences with indigenous knowledge, for climate resilient decision making in West Pokot County. The assignment will entail;

1. Mapping of Animal and crop value chains.
2. Development robust and easy to use algorithms/tools for geospatial analysis and satellite image processing to be shared with county officials and partners for application in satellite data processing
3. Set-up a main data processing unit/station at the county equipped with the required state-of-art hardware, software and methodologies/algorithms. The unit is expected to continuously perform geospatial and remote sensing analysis, using desktop and cloud-based systems, and relay the information on a timely basis to other sub-stations in the county for climate resilient decisions and action.
4. Training county officials & partners on the methodologies and tools applied to ensure continuity and sustainability of the project activities.

Geographical Scope

The short-term consultancy will cover community conservancies in Pellow and Masol and a total of 10 wards namely Masol , Endough, Sekerr , Sook, Weiwei , Kiwawa , Suam, Kasei , Lomut , Alale  and Riwo wards.

 

Duration

3 Months

 

General objective of the climate smart technologies consultancy

The objective of the climate smart technologies consultancy is to promote the use of climate smart technologies, modern sciences and indigenous knowledge with the aim of generating valuable information that can support smart climate resilient decisions.

Specific Objectives

R1. Animal value chains decision support

1. Mapping spatio-temporal vegetation cover changes
2. Mapping spatio-temporal herd movements to optimize on herd grazing areas and inform grazing committees
3. Mapping of water points/pans for watering the animals

R2. Crop value chains decision support

Provide climate services and Earth Observation climate information on;

1. Climate change detection
2. Climate/Weather projections
3. Drought assessment
4. Landuse-Landcover classifications and change detection
5. Spatio-temporal information on crop status indicators such as biomass, vegetation indices, Leaf Area Indices, fraction of vegetation cover
6. Crop suitability mapping and crop calendar development

R3. Climate Smart Sustainability and Advocacy Actions

1. Workshops with county officials, grazing committees, farmers and any other stakeholders.
2. Training local climate smart officials from the County Government of West Pokot (CGI), National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) and other partners on interpretation and dissemination of the climate smart products
3. Train county officials on the inclusion of climate smart actions in their annual budgets to ensure that the actions continue after the end of the project

 

Use of findings

E4Impact Foundation, the County Government and other partners will use the information from this consultancy in:-

1. Drought monitoring and early warning systems – this is aimed at providing significant benefits for drought risk management, efficient and timely response, adaptation, mitigation, and reduced vulnerability in the county
2. Drought impact, climate services, and risk financing – understanding the impacts of drought events along with associated vulnerabilities is key to support with efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of drought and understand how to build resilience in the future. Furthermore, risk financing, through credit and insurance, is an effective tool to minimize losses from hazards such as drought
3. Agricultural land use, crop assessments, livestock feed availability and water resources – Earth observation data/information could be assimilated into crop models and used to recalibrate model parameters thereby reducing on uncertainties associated with seasonal weather conditions. Incorporating ground observations in the models could further reduce these uncertainties.
4. Establishment of expert working groups to foster regional cooperation – establishing regional partnerships with participation from national & regional institutions, private sectors, and local, regional & international organizations to improve climate services using Earth Observation and facilitate agricultural decision-making to help with food security in the county

 

METHODOLOGY:

The consultant is expected to use various methods of carrying out this assignment including, but not limited to:

1. Inception meeting with relevant stakeholders in the landscape.
2. Desk review – reviewing relevant documents generated by both local and national governments, NGOs and other organizations that would assist in the use of climate smart technologies to support climate resilient decision making

• Liaise with project partners (such as CEFA, NRT, KMD, NDMA, NEMA and relevant County Government of West Pokot departments) to gather more information on existing/past relevant work thereby build on the work and avoid duplication of efforts.

1. Application of modern scientific techniques to obtain & process historic, current and future climate/weather information from existing global and regional climate model data repositories
2. Develop and apply methodologies and/or tools for validation of these climate/weather information against local measurements from weather stations
3. Application of modern geospatial and earth observation techniques to generate high resolution products of animal feed resource availability (fodder) and vegetation health status using appropriate indicators; such as biomass, vegetation indices, Leaf Area Indices, fraction of vegetation cover

• Analyse the spatio-temporal variabilities of animal feed resource availability over the entire county and develop weekly/decadal/monthly/seasonal maps of feed availability
• Application of modern geospatial and earth observation techniques to map/retrieve water resources use and productivity information.

1. Map water resources availability for animal and irrigation water sources for irrigated agriculture.
2. Using available livestock census data and information gathered through interviews, perform detail analysis of herd movements against animal feed resource availability and advise on potentially ideal herd movements during the different times of the year
3. Development robust and easy to use algorithms/tools for geospatial analysis and satellite image processing to be shared with county officials and partners for application in satellite data processing

• Set-up a main data processing unit/station at the county equipped with the required state-of-art hardware, software and methodologies/algorithms. The unit is expected to continuously perform geospatial and remote sensing analysis, using desktop and cloud-based systems, and relay the information on a timely basis to other sub-stations in the county for climate resilient decisions and action.
• Train staff from West Pokot County (Environment, Agriculture, Water, KMD, NDMA, NEMA and the other key partners) on tools and methodologies applied, interpretation of results and dissemination of information to locals to support climate smart decisions

 

Core responsibilities of the Consultant: –

The lead consultant will be expected to perform the following core responsibilities:

• Review all relevant secondary sources of data and any other relevant information to the study.
• With advise and under the supervision of E4IMPACT, engage with all project stakeholders such as county departments of Environment, Agriculture, Water, KMD, NDMA, NEMA and the other key partners
• Develop all necessary data collection methodologies/procedures, tools, implementation plan, time schedule and present them for review before use.

• Recruit and train field data collection assistants and supervisors under the supervision of E4Impact

• Conduct both quantitative and qualitative data collection using acceptable methodologies approved and supervised by E4IMPACT.
• Develop relevant databases and provide supervision of data collection using the approved methods and procedures to ensure accuracy and quality of data
• Perform geospatial and remote sensing analysis using modern platforms, tools and procedures approved by E4IMPACT and validate the results using ground observations or any other acceptable validation techniques
• Constantly update the client on progress of the exercise through short reports and presentations for quality control

• Present draft report for review and input.
• Develop the final report incorporating stakeholders’ feedback

 

Requirements

Education

Advanced university degree in natural sciences or engineering or similar in one or more areas of disaster management, geospatial technologies, remote sensing/earth observation, sustainable development etc.

Skills and Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years of professional experience in areas related to Geospatial analysis (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS)
• Skills in desktop and cloud-based GIS and RS data processing software/tools (cloud computing and web GIS)
• Experience in the application of GIS, earth observation and space technologies in disaster management.
• Experienced in geospatial and remote sensing, field data collection and processing.
• Good understanding of ICT systems/infrastructures required to satisfy institutional GIS and RS needs
• Experienced training staff/officials from different background, with different professional levels on basic to advanced GIS and RS
• Experience setting up institutional GIS/RS stations/units will be an added advantage

• Demonstrated experience in field data collection,
• Provide evidence of the previous similar work done.
• Strong analytical, research and presentation skills.
• Excellent report writing skills
• Ability to take on assignments that require travel, mission and/or appointment to field locations.

Application Procedure

Interested Firms or Individuals should provide the following documents together with the proposal:

1. Technical proposal or Expression of Interest indicating prior experience and how this assignment will be executed.
2. Financial proposal
3. Recent CV with references.

All applications should be emailed to procurement.kenya@e4impact.org by the 15th  of November 2022

221017 – ToR Climate Smart Activities-USTAHIMILIVU