Land Rights Standard Training Consultant

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) is a global coalition of more than 150 organizations dedicated to advancing the forest, land, and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendant Peoples, and in particular the women within these groups. RRI’s members capitalize on each other’s strengths, expertise, and geographic reach to achieve solutions more effectively and efficiently. RRI leverages the power of its global coalition to amplify the voices of local peoples and proactively engage governments, multilateral institutions, and private sector actors to adopt institutional and market reforms that support the realization of rights.

RRI is coordinated by the Rights and Resources Group (RRG), a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC.

Background

In 2019–2020, RRI collaborated with the Indigenous Peoples Major Group (IPMG) for Sustainable Development with support from the Forest Peoples’ Programme (FPP) and the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) to produce a set of principles grounded in international law and best practice to guide all landscape-level actions and investments by civil society organizations and institutions, companies, and investors across the world.

The resulting “Land Rights Standard” defines 10 principles for recognizing and respecting Indigenous Peoples’, local communities’, and Afro-descendant Peoples’ land, territorial, and resource rights in landscape restoration, management, conservation, climate action, and development projects and programs. It was publicly launched in 2022 on the sidelines of CoP27 in Egypt. Learn more here.

Purpose and Scope

The Consultant will support RRI's Rights, Climate and Conservation program in the development of a workshop curriculum to socialize the Land Rights Standard.

RRI is currently working to scale up awareness, endorsement, and adoption of the Standard by non-government actors, including NGOs, investors, and donors. Itswidespread adoption will require Indigenous and community rightsholders’ understanding, support, and ownership of the Standard as a tool for their advocacy and negotiations around their self-determined priorities. A key roadblock to the Standard’s adoption is the current lack of awareness around its principles and use among the rightsholders’ organizations within RRI’s coalition.

Consultant Activities

To promote its adoption and use, we are seeking a Consultant to design a 1–2 day in-person and virtual training program to build our coalition members’ technical and practical knowledge of the Land Rights Standard. Specifically, we want this training to clearly communicate the Standard’s expectations, principles, and practical relevance to Indigenous and community leaders so they can utilize it to advance their priorities and movements.

For this training program, we are seeking an individual or organization with demonstrated expertise in designing and conducting workshops for Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and/or local community leaders, especially women, particularly around climate, conservation, land rights, livelihoods, or advocacy.

We envision the program as an interactive and creative learning space that empowers coalition members to develop their own implementation plans around using the Land Rights Standard in their local and global advocacy, and to come away with the technical knowledge, skills, and advocacy tools they need to use it effectively for their communities’ benefit.

The Consultant will:

• Review the Land Rights Standard and other related materials and meet with an Ad Hoc Steering Committee of rightsholders, academics, and other experts to begin framing the curriculum structure.
• Develop a preliminary outline for a curriculum for Indigenous, local, and Afro-descendant communities in alignment with the workshop objectives.
• Develop a curriculum for both in-person and virtual delivery workshops, including facilitated discussions, reading materials, a participant’s guide, and an instructor’s manual for each.
• Revise the draft curriculum based on feedback from RRI, the Ad Hoc Steering Committee, and other key stakeholders.
• Ensure a smooth handover of all workshop materials to RRI, ensuring staff have the necessary knowledge of the curriculum to facilitate the workshop.

Consultant Deliverables:

The consultant will complete the following deliverables:

1. A proposed outline of the workshop curriculum (3-5 pages).
2. A first draft of the workshop curriculum for both in-person and virtual delivery workshops, each with facilitated discussions, reading materials, a participant’s guide and an instructor’s manual.
3. A final draft of the in-person and virtual delivery workshop curriculum.

Minimum Requirements

• Experience designing and delivering tailored training modules and programs targeting Indigenous Peoples and/or local communities, including women and youth, on topics such as environmental justice, leadership, human rights defense, advocacy, community organizing, and more.
• Demonstrated expertise in applying lateral or other creative learning strategies based on the expressed needs and existing capacity of training subjects.
• Experience participating in and/or designing land-based pedagogies privileging the deep connection and relationship Indigenous Peoples and local communities have with the land is an asset.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with issues like climate change solutions, land rights, Indigenous and community livelihoods, and women and youth leadership is highly desired.
• Professional fluency in one or more Indigenous languages, French, and/or Spanish preferred.

Budget

The anticipated budget for developing the curriculum is between US$15,000 – 22,000.

Proposed Timeline

Activities will begin as soon as the agreement is executed, ideally by May and continue through August 31, 2024.

Key Contract Terms

This will be a fixed price contract. The consultant will be paid based on completion of deliverables.

Proposal Requirements

Please submit your proposal through this website with the documents listed below.

1. Narrative proposal describing your understanding of the tasksand your approach to delivering the project (no longer than 2 pages);
2. Summary of qualifications describing how your background, or that of your team, positions you to deliver the project (no longer than 1.5 pages);
3. Workplan in Gantt format (no longer than 1 page);
4. Financial proposal with all costs to deliver the project;
5. Annexes, including CVs for relevant team members (each no longer than 2 pages), and any other relevant information.

The deadline for submission is 11:59pm ET on April 12, 2024

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be scored based on the following parameters:

• Proposed approach (35%)
• Understanding of the work and previous similar engagements (20%)
• Consultant work history and experience (20%)
• Costs (25%)