Terms of Reference at Nutrition International

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Terms of Reference Conduct an environmental analysis for the BRIGHT project at Nutrition International April, 2024

Terms of Reference

Conduct an environmental analysis for the BRIGHT project in Tabora, Tanzania.

1. Background

Nutrition International (NI) is a global nutrition organization, which aims to transform the lives of vulnerable people, especially women, adolescent girls, and children, by improving their nutritional status and health, as these groups often have the greatest unmet needs.

Nutrition International is implementing a seven-year (2022-2029) integrated adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) and nutrition project titled “Building Rights for Improved Girls’ Health in Tanzania” (BRIGHT) in Tabora, Tanzania. The project is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented in partnership with the Government of Tanzania, EngenderHealth (EH) and Young and Alive Initiative (YAI). The BRIGHT project is designed to build agency and support the empowerment of adolescents (10-19 years old) in eight councils in Tabora region to exercise their SRH and nutrition rights by focusing on three distinct and interconnected program approaches:

Creating an enabling environment to strengthen governance and accountability between rights holders and duty bearers, and engaging community members, parents/caregivers, religious and traditional leaders to promote and support adolescent SRH and nutrition rights.
Strengthening service provision to become more accessible, responsive, and effective to the needs of adolescent girls and boys.
Engaging adolescent girls and boys, as well as key social influencers (including parents, community, religious and traditional leaders) to increase the demand and use of quality SRH and nutrition information and services.

In addition, BRIGHT promotes gender equality, income generation, entrepreneurial skills for girls, and life skills training to support out-of-school older adolescent girls. Furthermore, the project strengthens genderresponsive and adolescent-friendly governance and accountability systems and structures, increases adolescent participation in community-based accountability platforms, and redistributes the burden of unpaid care by addressing deeply entrenched social norms.

Nutrition International seeks to engage a highly skilled and experienced consultant to conduct an environmental analysis (EA) of the BRIGHT project’s activities and support selected health facilities in Tabora to develop and implement facility level environmental action plans (EAP).

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2. Rationale and Objectives

The BRIGHT project is committed to adhering to international and Government of Tanzania’s environmental standards, best practices, and regulations including relevant legal and regulatory frameworks, in the design and implementation of project activities.

Based on Canada’s Environmental Screening Criteria^[1], the BRIGHT project has been categorized as a Category B project, which means a project with potential low to moderate environmental risk or environmental opportunity. Category B initiatives require environmental analysis, the depth of which is commensurate with the initiative’s environmental significance. Accordingly, to comply with the

requirements of the contribution agreement and particularly, Canada’s environmental legal framework, comprised of the Impact Assessment Act 2019 and Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan, and Program Proposals, as well as Tanzania’s legal and regulatory framework on the environment, notably the Environmental Management Act 2004, EIA and Environmental Audit of 2005 and 2018 amendments, as well as the Environmental Policy of 2021, the BRIGHT project will conduct the environmental analysis based on guidelines provided by the frameworks stated above.

Objective of the Consultancy

The primary objective is to support the integration of environmental sustainability measures in BRIGHT project activities through the implementation of environmental action plans at health facilities level.

Specific Objectives

To identify potential adverse and positive environmental impact of project activities and project risks from the environment, while maintaining a gender lens that considers the differential impacts of the environment on adolescents, women, and men.
To identify mitigation measures to address potential adverse impacts as well as opportunities to enhance environmental benefits.

Timeframe

The environmental analysis will be completed over a period of three months from the date of signing the contract.

3. Scope of Work

1) Workplan

Develop a detailed workplan that outlines key steps and timelines for completion of deliverables as outlined in the Terms of Reference, including timelines for engagement with relevant stakeholders.

2) Analysis of policies, regulations, and environmental context in Tanzania

Conduct a desk review of existing environmental legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks relevant to the BRIGHT project to understand how project activities align with current environmental regulations and frameworks.
Review and assess the existing environmental improvement plans in the project-supported councils and selected health facilities to identify gaps, risks, environmental renovation needs, etc.
Develop a draft report with findings from the review of existing national policies, programme frameworks, strategies/guidelines and action plans, key informant interviews (KII) and focus group discussions (FGD). The report should include recommendations for minimizing any negative impacts on the environment from the BRIGHT project and enhancing opportunities for environmental impacts, and implementation of the recommendations at health facility level.

3) Stakeholder consultations

Consult with key stakeholders such as environmental regulatory body in the region, environmental NGOs, academic and scientific community in the region as well as local communities in Tabora to assess their knowledge in environmental management and sustainability as well as to identify any environmental concerns. This will be done through KIIs and FGDs.

4) Environmental Action Plans for health facilities

Collaborate with selected health facilities to develop environmental action plans that describe environmental management activities to be integrated at health facilities as well as capacity strengthening activities for regional and council health management teams (R/CHMT) and health facility staff to implement the EAPs.
Support health facilities to integrate environmental management recommendations in the facility action plans.
In collaboration with health facilities, develop monitoring indicators and milestones to be used and integrated in the health facilities’ monitoring and reporting schedules.
Develop training materials and conduct training of R/CHMTs and selected health facility staff on the implementation of the EAPs.

4. Methodology

Literature Review: The consultant will conduct a literature review of existing research, policies and best practices related to the project environmental context. This will include review of the publications from the Government of Tanzania, the World Health Organisation (WHO), Global Affairs Canada (GAC) as well as relevant project documents. This review will enable the consultant to understand the environmental landscape and to review the BRIGHT project against existing environmental policies and regulations. This is essential for ensuring compliance with legal frameworks and promoting synergy with established environmental guidelines.

Key Informant Interviews and Consultation with stakeholders, including key influencers (e.g local leaders, council leaders etc.), adolescents, and healthcare providers in health facilities to understand specific environmental conditions, ecological nuances, and community dynamics.

Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with a range of stakeholders in the selected councils including adolescent girls and boys (aged 10-19), key social influencers, civil society and local government or community leaders. Focus groups will help to identify shared beliefs, values, and norms within a community or stakeholder group. Understanding these group dynamics is important for assessing how environmental changes might be perceived collectively. FGDs will also provide a platform for exploring the cultural and social context of the environment in the project areas.

Questionnaire: Using data collection tools reviewed and approved by the BRIGHT technical team, the consultant will collect data through open or closed ended questions designed for the environmental analysis.

Observation: With the participation of different stakeholders and the community, the consultant will gather data by observing events, people, and noting characteristics of community members in their day-today settings.

Facilities Sampling: The consultant will conduct sampling to establish a representative sample of health facilities and target groups including health officials, adolescents and community members for the environmental analysis to determine the infrastructure barriers faced by adolescents’ in accessing health services including SRH and nutrition. This will go in line with assessing the existing environmental management/improvement plans in the sampled facilities to identify gaps.

Data Collection and Management: The consultant will organize and supervise the data collection process, as well as conduct quality assurance of the data collected. The consultant will also be responsible for all supervision, logistics, and transportation of data collection teams. The consultant will be expected to provide a detailed plan on the data collection process, including timelines, personnel (enumerators, supervisors), platforms, and tools.

Data Analysis: The consultant will be responsible to conduct data analysis on the data collected during the environmental analysis. Data analysis will include indicator calculations of all environmental related indicators listed in the PMF (please refer to Section 3.3.), as well as descriptive statistics which describe the characteristics of the dataset should be calculated as a first step in the analysis.

Data Collection

The consultant will develop data collection tools (questionnaires, interview guides, etc.) in coordination with the BRIGHT technical team to achieve the objectives of the environmental analysis.

The data collection process must be participatory, inclusive, respect the local context, follow good practice on quality, attribution, and validation of data and analysis. At the completion of the assignment, the consultant will hand over all raw data set and files to NI.

Research Questions

The consultant will develop key research questions to guide the analysis based on the objectives of the environmental analysis as well as the key project indicators 1232a, 1232b and 1234a outlined in the Project Management Framework (PMF) shown in table 1 below.

Table: 1 List of Environmental indicators in the PMF

EMP Indicators in PMF	Levels of Disaggregation	Project Outcomes
1232a. # of health communitybased facilities renovated to include/improve youth friendly spaces	Type of Facilities	1232: Renovation of health facility infrastructures conducted for friendliness, privacy, and confidentiality in provision of SRH and nutrition services to adolescents
1232b. Level of compliance (scale 1-4) with protocols specified in the EAP	n/a	1232: Renovation of health facility infrastructures conducted for friendliness, privacy, and confidentiality in provision of SRH and nutrition services to adolescents
1234a. # of environmental action plans implemented at health facility level	n/a	1234: Technical support provided on the development of an environmental action plan to health facilities

5. Ethical Considerations

The analysis will be conducted in accordance with applicable national guidelines and ethics as defined by the Environmental Impacts Assessment and Audit regulations of 2005 and its amendment of 2018. In this regard, the selected consultant must clearly articulate in the inception report, risks associated with the analysis and the required protocols to be adopted ensure that the analysis is conducted in a manner that meets all national and global ethical standards including those for protection of marginalized and vulnerable group including youths/ adolescents, women, and peoples with disabilities.

Furthermore, the consultant will seek and obtain informed consent to be used by enumerators to ensure the EA is well introduced to the prospective respondents following an informed consent process.

Data collection must be planned and arranged, preferably in an open environment with the recommended distance between enumerators and respondents to comply with public health guidelines, particularly COVID-19 precautions. The consultant will be responsible for recruiting and managing the enumerators.

The consultant will also be responsible for the submission of the tools and protocols for ethical and government review and approval by the recognized ethics committee and appropriate government agencies. Training cannot commence until these approvals have been received and certified. The selected team must also demonstrate how ethical considerations will be handled along with the security and confidentiality of data collected.

6. Key Deliverables

1) Inception report

The consultant will develop an inception report that details the overall process for conducting the environmental analysis. This should include the detailed workplan, overall research protocol, framework for the desk review, draft data collection tools including interview questionnaires, and the data collection and analysis plan.

2) Written ethical approval

The consultant will be responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions for the environmental analysis, including ethical approval from a recognized Institutional Review Board, as well as any other local permissions necessary to conduct the analysis.

3) First draft of the environmental analysis report

The consultant will be responsible for ensuring data collection through field visits, quality assurance, and data analysis. The consultant will prepare and submit to the BRIGHT team a first draft of the report, which should include an analysis of findings of the environmental conditions, legal and institutional arrangements, risks and opportunities, and mitigation and enhancement measures. It should also include recommendations for environmental management and monitoring plans for facilities.

4) Revised environmental analysis report

The BRIGHT project team, including the technical team, will review the first draft of the report and provide feedback to the consultant for any necessary revisions. The consultant will incorporate feedback and recommendations in the report.

5) PowerPoint presentation of the report

The consultant will prepare a PowerPoint presentation of the report for validation of the environmental analysis’ findings and recommendations. This will be presented at a validation workshop with regional health and nutrition stakeholders, as well as adolescents for their feedback. The feedback will be incorporated in the final report.

6) Validation workshop report

The report should capture feedback from the validation workshop and recommendations to finalize the environmental analysis report. A list of participants with designation and contact information (phone number and email) and workshop agenda should be attached as annexes to the workshop report.

7) Environmental Action Plans

The consultant will provide the BRIGHT team with copies of the environmental action plans for health facilities, along with a report detailing the development process. The report should provide overview of the methodology used to develop the plans, monitoring indicators, and lessons learned.

8) Training plan

The consultant will develop and share a training plan, which includes proposed dates, locations, training agenda, and materials with the BRIGHT team prior to conducting the training for R/CHMTs and health facility staff.

9) Training report

A report will be shared with the BRIGHT team upon completion of the training. This should include a summary and breakdown of the training sessions, participant list, training evaluation, achievements and challenges, and recommendations on next steps. The consultant will also attach any related documents such as the training schedule, presentation slides, and handouts as annexes to the report.

10) Final report

The consultant will submit a final environmental analysis report with all feedback from the validation workshop incorporated. The final report should include an executive summary, objectives and research questions, research design and methodology, analysis of the findings, and recommendations on strategic actions. .

The Consultant will work closely with and receive support from the BRIGHT team to complete the environmental analysis. The BRIGHT Project Director will be the focal point for this work and the BRIGHT technical team will review and approve all deliverables.

7. Qualifications

Master’s degree or equivalent in Environmental Science, Environmental Engineering and or Natural resources assessment and Management.
A minimum of seven years’ work experience in Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and Management Analysis.
Full knowledge of national legal and regulatory environmental framework as well as international environmental/climate frameworks including knowledge of Canada’s environmental policy is an advantage.
Knowledge and experience of using qualitative research and participatory methodologies and approaches such as Environmental safeguarding and participatory rapid appraisal.
Working Knowledge, Skills and experience on social development, gender studies, nutrition, public health, education, or youth work.
Strong analytical capacity and proven ability to write compelling reports.
Excellent understanding and experience on the linkages between environment and climate change issues related to adolescent sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, and gender equality in Tanzania and the region.
Excellent interpersonal skills, cultural sensitivity, and ability to communicate effectively in English and Kiswahili with diverse set of stakeholders including public, private and local communities.
Proven ability and experience in working with development partners (bilateral agencies) and national government, both central and local government authorities.
Ability to adhere to deadlines and maintain confidentiality.

8. Expressions of Interest

Candidates should submit the following documents in English by E-mail to: bidstanzania@nutritionintl.org with the subject line: Consultancy – BRIGHT Environmental Analysis by May 1, 2024.

Technical proposal (not exceeding 10 pages)
Summary workplan
Cover letter which must also include links to PDF copies of samples of surveys/assessments done by the consultant.
The consultant fee per day in Tanzanian shillings inclusive of all applicable taxes
Detailed CV with three references
Recent samples of 2 comparable pieces of work

All questions/clarifications regarding this TOR are to be made strictly through bidstanzania@nutritionintl.org