The Small Grant Programme in Sierra Leone in the bid to develop it Country Programme Strategy for OP7 has called for proposals from non-governmental organizations or civil society organizations as well as academic institutions to assist in the development of the Country Programme Strategy for the 7th Operational Phase (2019 ? 2023).

The Institute of Environmental Management and Quality Control (IEMQC) at Njala University has been awarded to undertake the CPS development. The aim of this project is to generate information to produce a country programme strategy(CPS) for Sierra Leone that will guide the grant making for Small Grants Programme during the 7th Operational Phase. IEMQC has staff with expertise in landscape management, community and stakeholder participatory processes that will be of immense use for this project implementation for GEF Small Grants Programme.

This project will include stakeholders? consultation and scoping for participatory and inclusiveness in the process of identifying and selecting the landscapes/seascapes of greatest interest to the Government of Sierra Leone and the GEF SGP Sierra Leone. Three reports will be produced: 1) a Stakeholder Consultation 2) A baseline conducted in communities within the selected landscape and these communities will be categories into clusters for project preparation and funding. The baseline information will provide the basis for measuring the change or improvement during monitoring and evaluation; against the results achieved at the end of OP7 implementation. 3) ? Develop and submit the Country Programme Strategy for the 7th Operational Phase.

The team will engage the SGP National Coordinator during a one-day session to plan and develop the itinerary and map out the required logistics support from UNDP office. This will be followed by developing a check list on the relevant documents to be obtained for review of literature. In-depth literature review of the following documents shall be carried out: Sierra Leone?s Medium-Term development Plan, the Country Programme Strategy (CPS) for SGP 6th Operational Phase, Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Project Identification Form (PIF), SGP project reports, Technical guidelines note on landscape/seascape approaches, UN Development Assistance Framework and the UNDP current strategic document for strategic alignment with Country Programme Strategy for OP7.

IEMQC will consult with members of the National Steering Committee to share their experience and lessons learnt from past implementation. Furthermore, the Consulting team will develop, pre-test and finalize discussion guides for the consultation and scoping study and questionnaires for the baseline assessments. The team will then plan and conduct one day stakeholders? consultation with a list of 35 participants that will be drawn from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Community Based Organizations(CBOs), Non-Governmental Organizations, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) including the National Protected Area Authority (NPAA), Environment Protection Agency (NPA); Universities and Research Institutions, USAID Forestry Programme and other Donors. It is proposed that one week will be required for the various stakeholders? consultations and scooping exercise using focus group discussions, face-to-face interview and plenary discussions. These discussions will generate primary data in addition to the literature review leading to the selection in addition to the OP6 landscape for the baseline study. This consultation will last for a week and a report of the 1st phase of this consultancy will be produced and validated in the 2nd week.

The second phase will commence by the team developing, pre-testing and finalizing questionnaires for the baseline assessments. This will be followed by the recruitment and training of 3 supervisors and 15 enumerators on research ethics and tools. The area of baseline study will be demarcated and allocated to enumerators and supervisors based on the available statistics on the community profile and population while the consultants will carry on the spot checks. The exercise will be carefully planned and conducted in all catchment communities within the selected landscapes/seascapes. The communities will be clustered into units of Area Development Programme (ADP). Communities that will now serve as a group to be targeted by the Small Grant Programme. The consultants will require 3 weeks to administer the baseline assessment tools in all communities within the selected landscape/seascape including the OP6 Landscape and compile and collate the data. This will be interpreted using a data processing software programme for analysis and interpretation. At the end of this a draft report of the baseline assessment will be produced and shared with representatives for validation of information. All comments and inputs will contribute to improving the final draft of the baseline assessment report.

A draft zero of Country Programme Strategy document for OP7 will be produced using the information from the two reports and one day validation workshop will be organized to present this draft for inputs and comments from the National Steering Committee (NSC). After this critique a draft one will be produced with all the comments for the NSC approval