The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is one of the largest conservation organizations in the World. WWF has been working in the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL) for many years alongside the government, civil society, private sector organizations and local communities to contribute towards providing an enabling environment for the achievement of sustainable natural resource management. Our mission is to stop degradation of our planet’s natural environment, and build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.

Introduction:

In 2020, WWF started to implement a GVL Initiative Development Project to inspire the formation of a Collaboration Initiative between the Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) and Conservation and Development NGOs. The goal of this collaboration is to increase effectiveness of conservation work in the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL) in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda. A number of background studies have been completed and meetings of partners conducted.

The collaboration is expected to;
• Increase collaboration and effectiveness of conservation work in the Greater Virunga Landscape
• Build a shared vision for the GVL among collaborating conservation and development NGOs working alongside and in support of GVTC
• Agree a forward-looking GVL strategy and how best to collaborate in its implementation including via assigned roles and responsibilities
• Improve outcomes through better collaboration amongst NGOs, increase investments where there are gaps, and avoid duplication
• Agree some potential early projects where partners could collaborate and demonstrate the potential success of the initiative

The future structure and framework for collaboration is for members to determine and there is no presumption of its eventual shape. However, the initial idea is for it to be guided by a partnership agreement/ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of like-minded member organizations seeking to work alongside and in support of Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC). GVTC is an inter-governmental regional body mandated to enhance and facilitate conservation work in the GVL- https://greatervirunga.org).

Initial discussions have been very positive, but further consultations are needed to agree on the framework/structure of this collaboration and to agree terms of the partnership.

A legal and institutional development expert/ Firm is required to support the development of the GVL Initiative’s Collaboration Framework Agreement/ MoU and to manage the necessary consultative meetings/ discussions for its adoption.

Scope of work:

The consultant/Firm will help to originate the framework structure and facilitate a consultative process among partners in order to obtain input and consensus on the key provisions in the partnership document.

Currently we anticipate that there will be four strands to this work
1. Initial meeting/s between the consultant, WWF, GVTC and the Core Group of the Collaboration Partners
2. Desk work to review current available literature of the collaboration initiative to further develop the agreement about objectives, operating principles for the collaboration, governance framework and ways of working
3. Subject to the above, develop the partnership agreement/ MoU and consult member organizations to agree proposed content of the resulting draft partnership agreement/ MoU
4. Present the final version of the draft partnership agreement/ MoU to the core working group and the steering committee.

For further details, please download the tender document here:Terms of reference for GVL partnership agreement MoU