Consulting Services, Environmental and Social Due Diligence (ESDD) Studies for Protected Areas (Legacy Landscapes Fund Applications)

Brief description of the Contract

The Legacy Landscape Fund (LLF) is a joint initiative by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), KfW Development Bank (KfW), Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and multiple conservation partners. The Fund’s overall goal is to permanently finance key conservation activities, inside and in the buffer zones of legally recognized Protected Areas, in globally significant biogeographical realms and landscapes of developing countries. To this end, the LLF develops a scalable portfolio of at least 30 important legacy landscapes by 2030.

In addition to nature conservation criteria, human rights concerns as well as possible environmental and social impacts are also taken into account when selecting the protected areas to be supported. For this purpose, separate Environmental and Social Due Diligence studies (ESDDs) must be prepared for each protected area when submitting applications. 

Requested Services:

In order to decide on the eligibility of Legacy Landscapes (LL) applications, ESDDs must be created for each of the approximately 8-12 protected areas as part of the next stage of this tender. The assignment is expected to commence in Q3 2022 (as of July 2022) and the ESDD process shall be completed within 3 months and with an estimated person effort of 45-55 days per LL site.

Based on a review of existing documents, a field visit, stakeholder interviews and consultations, the key objectives of the foreseen ESDD studies would be for each LL:

• To identify and assess potential environmental, social and human rights risks related to the proposed LL
• To establish a gap analysis between the existing procedures and regulatory requirements of the protected area against the requirements of KfW’s Sustainability Guideline (chiefly World Bank Environmental and Social Standards);
• To prepare an E&S Action Plan (ESAP) which specifies necessary gap closing measures between conservation management and the requirements of KfW’s Sustainability Guideline

Overall, the ESDD studies are expected to cover the following key risk areas:

• Social and human rights risks associated with restrictions on use and access;
• Social and human rights risks related to law enforcement operations in the conservation context;
• Social and human rights risks related to human wildlife conflict/-coexistence;
• Environmental and social risks related to the construction and operation of infrastructure and other physical interventions;

Corresponding expertise and qualifications in applying international E&S standards to these risk areas in the conservation sector (protected areas management, natural resources management) is, therefore, a prerequisite for being eligible to respond to this pre-qualification.