Democratic Republic of the Congo: Consultant for Business Review

The World Wide Fund for Nature, the Global Conservation Organization, through its office in DRC is seeking to recruit a consultant to undertake a business review.

Duration:3 months

I. Background

The World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is one of the leading conservation organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Office is one of the largest in the world, implementing a large number of projects under four main strategic pillars, namely i) Wildlife & Protected Areas (PA), ii) Forest & Agriculture, iii) Energy & Infrastructure and iv) Governance, the later being crosscutting.

In January 2017, the Regional Office for Africa has formally approved WWF-DRC Country Strategic Plan for the period 2017-2021, although its implementation started in July 2016. This strategic plan has been a tremendous work involving all WWF network and external partners in the definition of the country programme identity in full connection with the network global goals framed under nine practices and three drivers. Concurrently, it is fully aligned with the changes in Africa spelt out as “Africa Vision”, which outlines the key theory of change for WWF Conservation work in Africa from 2014 until 2020. It has therefore captured evolving changes in the region and in the overall WWF.

To this dynamic, it is worth mentioning the WWF culture of continuing re-creation of itself. That opened on-going discussions around the Network Development Strategy aiming at confirming WWF as truly “Go to Agency” that deliver lasting conservation impact, leading WWF-Africa to adopt a vision that is to be an influential and respected conservation organization in Africa; making Africa a model in demonstrating a sustainable relationship between humans and nature.

To deliver conservation impact to the desired ambition, WWF took into account main features of DRC known to be a very vast country with 2.3 million sq km and a population of over 70 million inhabitants. The socio-economic infrastructures are limited though. The road network leaves much to be desired and make trips and travels very challenging. WWF-DRC Landscapes and hubs are located at very remote places. Some of these places that can be reached after one to two-hour flights actually take a full day. Other places can be reached only by canoe or boat and are very time consuming. In this context, WWF-DRC cannot afford operating effectively through one single «Concentrated office». Rather we operate through a combination of «Light-program structure» and «Disperse-hub-and-spoke» structure. The country office is based in Kinshasa, the capital city of DRC and the hubs are located in Goma, Mbandaka, Boma and Monkoto. In the context of the Strategic Plan 2017-2021, these hubs will be properly materially and administratively equipped, and strengthened in their overall capacity to become fully operational and deliver Conservation outcomes fully.

Based on the above and motivated by its naturally perceived leadership in conservation, expectation from the WWF-DRC office by both the network and external partners is very high. It is therefore important that we should pause a bit and revisit its general structure both for Conservation and Operation at country management team level, and clarify further the best way of powerfully operationalizing it to meet and adapt to the fast evolving WWF network ambitions and to galvanize its Strong Office assets. The review will extend to the Conservation delivery model, learning from the strengths and weaknesses of the existing model especially in how WWF-DRC works with local partners, individual consultancies and governmental bodies in the delivery of the conservation work.

II. Objective of the Business Review

The Africa vision for 2020, the evolving network development strategy and the country programmatic ambition consider a WWF-DRC strong office as imperative for lasting transformational conservation. They also demand greater organizational efficiency and effectiveness on the part of the Country Programme, hence, the need for a thorough organization development review. This business review, focused on WWF-DRC’s Business Model and Structure operationalization, is expected to analyse and make recommendations on how to improve the efficiency of the organization all in a bid to support further the delivery of the strategic plan.

III. Key activities:

Business Model

· Review the business model and assess its alignment with the strategic plan;

• Review the strengths and weaknesses of the current model and check the opportunities and threats in regard to the country context.
• Assess the quality of implementing partnerships through focus on the local organizations, consultancies and governmental bodies.
• Analyze the opportunity and scope of outsourcing of Conservation works by WWF-DRC in the context of DRC.

Betterment of WWF-DRC Structure operationalization

• Diagnose and analyze organizational functions efficiency and effectiveness in line with the Organization’s expectations;
• Develop further and document the roles and responsibility of each strategic position at Country Management Team level.
• Assess the required competencies for SMT and key positions against exiting competencies, develop SMT capacity building plan in order to close gaps
• Assess the financial sustainability of the current structure (core) and propose effective and efficient adjustment measures focusing on options for cost optimization at the Coordination and field level. In other words, the assignment should suggest a soft structure for the Coordination Office.
• Analyze operations (finance, logistics and HR) work process, tools, procedures and transactions and their relevance to the conservation delivery context of DRC.
• Propose an implementation roadmap including communication and change management plans if change is concluded as an option.
• Develop a narrative that defines functional and hierarchical relationships
• Update job description and leadership role for each SMT and CMT member including accountability level.
• Assessment of internal communication needs / against current communication mechanism and give recommendations on how to improve

Iv. Expected outputs

The following are the key outputs and deliverables:

• Work plan and review design/methodology as part of the Consultant application
• Job Audit Report
• Conservation delivery model review plan
• Conservation delivery model ‘review report with concrete recommendations including a focus on optimization at the Coordination and field level. In other words, the assignment should suggest a soft structure for the Coordination Office.
• Organization Review and Development Plan
• Document explaining functional and hierarchical relations in connection with the approved organizational chart.
• Clear and systematic TOR for all leadership positions
• Most effective administrative circuit to implement WWF-DRC CSP developed
• Internal communication mechanism developed
• (SMT) capacity building plan developed and approved

V. Profile

The assignment is opened to a consultant firm, which will send a pluridisciplinary team or an independent senior consultant.

Required Qualifications include:

• University degree in Management
• Management and development, organization development or other related Discipline is essential. A relevant post-graduate degree is preferred.
• Relevant professional experience of at least ten (10) years in the different areas of human resource/organizational design and development
• Actual exposure to organizational reform development and management is strongly desired
• Professional working knowledge on local government processes and structure is essential
• Professional experience in foreign-assisted development projects is preferred
• Knowledge in real property appraisal is an advantage

Required Skills and Competencies

• Strong interpersonal skills, with ability to function in a multi-cultural environment
• Exceptionally strong analytical skills with ability to set priorities, complete work with minimal supervision, and meet deadlines
• Aptitude for clear and concise oral and written communication
• Fluency in English and French
• Adheres to WWF’s values, which are: Knowledgeable, Optimist, Determined and Engaging.

VI. Communication

Improving an organization structure operationalization can be a sensitive subject. It is important to communicate clearly that this organisational development enquiry is to explore the issues and options around optimization, efficiency and sustainability, with the aim of providing a good baseline of information to the management of Africa Office, WWF donors supporting the OD process and WWF-DRC. This will help avoid any perceptions that there is a pre-determined outcome to the organizational development process.

Interested and suitably qualified firms are invited to send a letter of motivation outlining the proposed methodology for achieving the overall outputs mentioned above. Detailed CV of the firms’ experts and references from at least three (3) organizational consultancies carried out within the past 10 years not later than March 20^th, 2018.

Applicants should include an estimate of time needed to fulfil the obligations outlined in their methodology and a daily rate. The estimated end date of the assignment will be 30^th May 2018. All application should be sent to recruit-wwfdrc@wwfdrc.org