Germany - Architectural, construction, engineering and inspection services - Auftragsänderung 1: Sahel Resilience Strengthening (SARES)

The Sahel region is facing multiple crises, facing high levels of acute and chronic food insecurity and malnutrition, widespread poverty, and unequal access to basic social services. Due to particularly strong gender inequalities in the Sahel, women are more affected by these challenges than men. Whilst agriculture remains the backbone of rural livelihoods, yields are low and over a third of crops are lost every year. Agricultural livelihoods become more and more precarious in an environment characterised by land degradation, increasing temperatures, recurrent droughts, floods, as well as erratic rainfall. The presence of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) increases the pressure on natural resources as well as on basic infrastructure in accessible areas, increasing conflicts over the use of natural resources. Climate change furthers food insecurity, threatens livelihoods and strengthens drivers of conflict. The transitional development assistance (TDA) project Sahel Resilience Strengthening (SARES) has been conceived to complement the Sahel Resilience Initiative (SRI) in selected intervention areas in four Sahelian countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Chad). The parallel commissioning entails the opportunity to build on the comparative strengths of the three organisations WFP, UNICEF, and GIZ along the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus. SARES therefore works in the same geographic areas with overlapping target groups. The project strengthens local capacities for natural resource governance (NRG), the resolution of NRG related conflicts, and disaster risk management. Building on stabilisation measures, it supports food and nutrition security through a livelihood approach and promotes social cohesion. The project implements key elements of BMZ"s Strategy on Transitional Development Assistance. It addresses three of the strategies in four fields of action: food and nutrition security, disaster risk management, as well as peaceful and inclusive communities. The project complements WFP"s and UNICEF"s measures to build stabilization capacities by focusing on adaptation and transformation capacities of individuals and communities. The capacities of local structures to govern natural resources effectively and inclusively, and to resolve related conflicts are strengthened, to help these structures to adapt to changing contexts (effects of climate change, effects of forced displacement etc.) and to transform rules in this area (e.g., reduce discriminatory regulations, improve access to land and other resources for women). The capacities of communities to adapt to increasing conflicts of interest between population groups, especially in communities hosting internally displaced persons (IDP) and suffering from increased pressure on local resources, are strengthened. This allows communities to organize community dialogues and to identify community measures that create or strengthen connections between (potentially) conflicting groups. Farmers" and agro-pastoralists" individual adaptation and transformation capacities to further diversify their production, to make it more nutrient-sensitive, to store, process, and market their products are strengthened through respective trainings and by providing the necessary materials. Capacities of individuals and of producer groups or cooperatives to engage in secondary production are fostered through training, provision of equipment, and continuous coaching. Opportunities for secondary production are focused on youth and women without adequate access to land. Income generating activities and capacity development interventions are designed in a way that allows persons with disabilities to participate. Through complementary commissioning, the project facilitates inter-agency cooperation between WFP, UNICEF, and GIZ, and joint learning at the HDP-nexus. It fosters an adequate representation of women in local structures, in community dialogues, and in income generating activities. The intended service is to provide and manage a short-term expert (STE) pool of experts with national and international experience for assignments and missions that contribute to the achievement of the defined outputs and indicators as well as providing high-quality technical and methodological expertise in the following four fields of interventions. The first field of intervention focuses on the improvement of locale capacities for natural resource governance and related conflict resolution. The services under this field of expertise focus on capacity development for local structures in charge of NRG. They comprise, among others, land commissions at the level of villages and municipalities, local disaster risk management (DRM) committees, as well as municipal structures, deconcentrated sectoral services and local dialogue and conflict resolution mechanisms, also involving traditional leaders. Furthermore, under these services tailor-made trainings and advisory services for (at least) 320 representatives of (at least) 100 of these structures at the different levels are conceived and implemented. NRG tools include, among others, methods for the elaboration of local agreements (Conventions Locales / Contrats sociaux) between different population groups, e.g., on transhumance corridors, as well as disaster risk management tools. The second field of intervention aims at improving the social and infrastructural preconditions for better inter-group relations. Through this, the project builds the capacities of community leaders to engage in inclusive, participatory community dialogues. Such dialogues serve to identify measures that could help bringing together (potentially) conflicting groups ("connectors"). "Dividers", i.e., topics, situations, or processes that aggravate differences and conflicts between population groups, are identified. In a second step, the project supports communities in addressing "connectors" and "dividers" they identified with concrete measures. To strengthen positive intergroup contacts and to connect different groups and people, the project also promotes cultural activities. They also serve to sensitize on crosscutting issues like gender, human rights, protection of natural resources, nutrition, hygiene etc. The third field of intervention targets the improvement of competencies of agro-pastoral households and producer groups for production, processing, preservation, and marketing of nutrient rich agricultural and animal products. SARES supports the training of producers in good agricultural practices adapted to climate change and good aquaculture practices. The aims combine nutritional requirements with marketing/income-generating potential and include diversification of production at household level through the choice of varieties and species and the promotion of aquaculture. The project also develops the capacity of organizations and households to reduce post-harvest losses. It supports livestock production systems for both nomadic and sedentary target groups. Support for processing consists of equipment support and technical and organizational training, including training for the rehabilitation of production infrastructures. For marketing, the project analyses local and regional markets to decide which products are to be promoted. Marketing will then be supported through training for producers' organizations, the organization of joint sales, networking with outlets and with materials. Income generating activities related to agricultural value chains will also be supported by the project. The fourth field of intervention aims at developing concepts for context-specific construction measures under the first three fields of intervention. The focus is on simple measures in the area of basic services and along the value chain of agro-pastoral households and producer groups. The coordination of the design, planning, preparation and implementation of the construction measures is carried out centrally by a cross-national construction component within the project. Based on previous experience, it can be assumed that many of the individual measures will be repetitive. One of the main project objectives is to maximize the benefits of regionality and to achieve synergy effects. The intention is therefore to develop a project-specific construction product catalogue in which standardized and pre-planned construction products can be found for direct implementation. This construction product catalogue is similar to a construction kit, from which the respective users can obtain extensive information on standardized optimal solutions according to their needs, as well as go directly into implementation. The catalogued and standardized products represent the "best solution", based on the multi-layered experience of GIZ and the "Construction in IC" group; these products are also intended to set an example for GIZ's quality standards and indirectly contribute to strengthening local capacities. A project-specific construction product catalogue is intended to provide orientation and make complex issues comprehensible. The focus is always on the users and stakeholders of the respective construction measures, both for the internal project managers and, above all, for the local partners and target groups. A construction product catalogue offers further synergy effects and opportunities for uncomplicated "scaling up" via other partners, particularly as part of the complementary approach. The fifth field of intervention aims at facilitating cross sectoral services such as the organisaiton of workshops, regular planning workshops and feedback sessions, provision of translating services, assistance in the domain of visibility through the preparation of videos for social media, fact sheets, etc., and monitoring and assistance to implement measures that take into account the do-no-harm principle as well as modeling these services to be gender inclusive.