Consultancy Job at The Palladium


Palladium develops and delivers solutions that create positive impact for communities, businesses, societies and economies. We transform lives and create enduring value by working with governments, corporations and non-profit organisations. Palladium is built on the idea that progress will be supported by four key pillars:

International Development
Strategy Execution Consulting
Impact Investment
Training and Events

We create positive impact through more than 100 current projects with more than 2000 employees operating in over 90 countries.

We are recruiting to fill the position below

Job Title: Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) of Proposed Cassava Processing Plant

Location: Abuja

Background

The West Africa Food Markets Pilot Programme (WAFM) is a five year DIFD funded initiative implemented by The Palladium Group in association with a consortium including Carana Corporation, KPMG, and Saana Consulting). It seeks to increase the availability of staple foods and purchasing power of farmers in food in secure regions of the Sahel as well as to increase their resilience to hunger and malnutrition during the regular hungry seasons and periodic shocks. This is to be achieved through increased food production (yield increases and/or reduction in postharvest losses) and cross border trade along the Ghana Burkina Faso and Niger Nigeria trade corridors, thereby contributing to lowering seasonal price volatility in selected food markets.
 

  • Challenge Fund (CF): The Challenge Fund is a £7.7m fund providing matching grant funding to agribusinesses in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Nigeria working in the Cassava, Maize, Millet and Sorghum value chains. The strategy of the CF is to incentivise businesses to launch pro poor innovative projects to increase staple food production, processing and marketing and enhance cross border trade. The CF aims to identify and coinvest in innovations that will not only expand their own businesses, but also strengthen smallholder supplier networks, national and regional markets. The Challenge Fund has recently concluded its first funding round and has selected four grantees for funding. The second window has been opened and being launched in the coverage countries.
  • Policy Facility (PF): The PF will support policy and institutional changes by facilitating the development of collaborative partnerships and providing grants to organisations to improve the policy and regulatory environment for food production and trade. The PF will target specific policies which are having a detrimental effect on the functioning of regional food markets.

Psaltry International:

  • Psaltry International Company intends to diversify its current operations, which involved the production and processing of cassava roots into food grade starch to the production of provitamin A cassava (TMS 01/1368) roots to be processed into gari, using their nucleus estate out grower farmer scheme, for export to Niger. For the implementation of the company’s business idea, they intend to build a 7ton per day gari factory (the chief executive officer has been to Brazil for a discussion with the equipment suppliers) within the environment of the cassava starch factory. This will be followed by a trial demonstration of the pro vitamin A cassava variety in conjunction with IFDC and IITA from September 2015 on the company's farm. Farmers would then be given the planting material after the stem multiplication and the factory will be test run after the first harvest of the variety, of which they intend to export 50% of the total production to Niger.
  • Psaltry International Company was shortlisted at the PCN stage, and selected for funding by the Independent Assessment Panel (IAP) on June 4th and approved by the WAFM Project Steering Committee (PSC) on June 16th 2015. However, a condition for contracting is the successful completion of an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) report.

Purpose of the Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to establish the possible environmental and social impact of the proposed cassava processing plant of Psaltry International Company Limited prior to completing and signing grant agreement between the company and West Africa Food Markets Programme. The environmental and social impact assessment is intended to:

  • Ascertain the possible environmental and social impacts of the gari processing factory;
  • Identify potential environmental and social risks of the plant in the medium to long term
  • Define necessary steps to manage, mitigate, and monitor any possible negative impacts during the construction and operational phases of the project.

Scope of the Work Required
The WAFM PMU require the services of an individual consultant to undertake the ESIA as per the below scope of work:

Task 1. Description of the Proposed Project:

  • Provide a full description of the project in terms of: location, general layout; existing/new road or other supportive infrastructure. This should be short and oriented to providing a background so that the reader can understand all relevant environmental and social characteristics, impacts, and mitigation measures.

Task 2. Description of the Environment:

  • Assemble, evaluate and present relevant baseline data on the environmental characteristics of the study area.
    • Physical environment: Topography, land use, landscaping, soil cover and available infrastructure serving the local people
    • Social environment: present and projected populations; cultural heritage sites on or near proposed infrastructure interventions.
    • Water resources: describe briefly water resources in general and its effect on water supply services.
    • Biological environment: terrestrial communities in areas affected by construction, facility sitting, land application or disposal; rare or endangered species; sensitive habitats, including parks or reserves, significant natural habitats; species of commercial importance in land application sites.

Task 3. Legislative and Regulatory Considerations:

  • Describe the pertinent laws, regulations and standards governing environmental quality, worker health and safety and, land use control, relevant to the project.

Task 4. Determination of the Potential Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Project:

  • Describe materials to be used, products and byproducts, including waste to be generated by the project and the methods of their disposal. In this analysis, distinguish between significant positive and negative impacts, direct and indirect impacts, and immediate and longterm impacts. The environmental impacts should be classified for both the construction and operational phases of the project.

Task 5. Development of an Environmental and Social Management Plan:
Prepare an Environmental and Social Management Plan that includes:

  • The actions needed to implement these measures. For each mitigation measure budgets, implementation schedule, responsible implementing agency and monitoring indicators should be specified.
  • Specific measures to be taken during the implementation and operation of the proposed project to eliminate or offset adverse environmental and social impacts, or to reduce them to acceptable levels; and

Main Outputs and Deliverables

  • Work plan and activities schedule for the assignment
  • Initial report for comments by Psaltry and the WAFM team
  • Final ESIA Report: a report as outlined in the scope of work.

Qualification
The consultancy services should be conducted by a technical person(s) with experience and qualifications in any of the following:

  • A professional Degree related to processing in the Agriculture sector with at least 10 years applied experience;
  • A professional degree in social science, economics or equivalent; have at least 10 years applied experience of conducting socioeconomic analysis and assessment for agribusinesses; and preferably have experience in Nigeria;
  • A professional Degree in Environment Science, Natural Resource Management or equivalent; have at least 10 years applied experience of work in resource management, conservation and development of agribusinesses;
  • In addition the consultant will have experience in development economics, rural development, business development and general agriculture.

Terms and Conditions

Contract modality and duration:

  • The Consultant will be hired under a Short-term Technical Assistance Agreement for a maximum of 25 Consultancy days including the inception tasks, desk review preparation of the draft report, validation and completion of report. It is expected that the consultant will carry out the assignment in November 2015 and complete his/her work no later than December 2016

Reporting

  • The consultant will report to the Team Leader, but will also take direction from the WAFM local and home office team members when appropriate.

Travel and other associated costs:

  • The assignment may involve field travel and the consultant is expected to be based in Nigeria. Any travel required by consultant for the purpose of data gathering based on agreed set out schedule and included in the approved action plan including travel with associated accommodation will be reimbursed.
  • The Consultant must receive prior approval by WAFM Team Leader. Pre - approved expenses will be reimbursed.

Payments schedule:

  • The payment for the services will be based on daily rate. It will be paid upon the submission of reports and timesheets indicating the actual number of days worked and specific activities undertaken as part of this assignment.

Key references:

  • Proposal and business plan of Psaltry International Company


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