Consultancy Opportunity at Oxfam

TERM OF REFERENCE
Leveraging private sector engagement and multi-stakeholder initiatives in Vietnam
through demonstrating Private Public Partnership model of “The Vietnam Skipjack Purse
Seine Fishery Improvement Project” (Vietnam SKJ FIP) 

1. Backgrounds of private sector engagement and PPP model.

Oxfam acknowledges that business can play an important role in contributing to ending global poverty and inequality. When companies integrate their social and environment responsibilities into their core business operations and respect their obligations, they can have a significant impact on poverty reduction and sustainable development. However, the companies’ obligations need to be in conjunction with the governments’ enable environments to regulate market governance and protect human rights, to ensure that all of society benefit from the activities of the private sector. It’s too often, companies fail to integrate social and environmental responsibilities into their corporate practice and contribute to deepening poverty and inequality. Governments fail to have strong public policy and regulations to protect the vulnerable in their society.

Oxfam wants to collaborate with private sector actors that strive to do business in a sustainable and inclusive manner. When private sector falls short of their social responsibility, Oxfam will hold them accountable, through dialogue, lobby, and public campaigning. Oxfam in Vietnam intends to deepen its engagement with private sector with the aim of improving sustainable livelihoods of small scale producers and securing their access to and control over natural resources and finance and services; increasing equal opportunities for its target populations. Oxfam in Vietnam continues to replicate and scale up some of Oxfam affiliates’ successful achievements in private sector engagement and partnership that are compatible with Vietnam context. Meanwhile, Oxfam in Vietnam also targets to explore and test the effectiveness and efficiency of new models to engage private sector through multi-stakeholder initiatives.

Cooperation between PS and development organization is challenging due to lack of common understanding on sustainable development, economic and social benefits and trust. It’s also because of the fact that there have not been available of multi-stakeholder collaboration models that show convincing evident of effectiveness and/or win-win outcome. The private public partnership models have been effective in infrastructure but agriculture. More specifically, the Vietnam seafood PPP has been challenging on its broad mission, vision and road map, in which it hasn’t influenced and attracted to the private sector with very specific concerns and foreseen benefits. An initiative of establishing PPP for Vietnam SKJ FIP was made with the objective of developing Vietnam Skipjack Purse Seine Fishery Improvement project based on MSC standards & looking forward to MSC certificate (Comprehensive FIP). This platform has representation of (DFISH), Provincial DARDs, WWF Viet Nam, Research Institute of Marine Fisheries (RIMF), Nha Trang University (NTU); VASEP, International Seafood Sustainability Foundations (ISSF), Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), VINATUNA, ICAFIS. The platform has organised some dialogues on its collaboration and governance, but its detail road-map and action plan for Vietnam SKJ FIP has not been agreed.

To leverage the PS engagement through transparent and accountable and effective collaboration of PPP, Oxfam plans to demonstrate the collaboration model of Vietnam SKJ FIP, from which it could document the key learning for sharing, replicating and leveraging private sector engagement programme of Oxfam. At the same time, under the Bridge fund by SIDA, Oxfam in Vietnam aims to keep its momentum going in seafood value chain work, engage more seafood companies to invest in responsible business practice, facilitate and support governments on regulating the obligations of companies for addressing inequalities in the value chain. 

Oxfam in Vietnam would like to invite organisation that is interested in facilitating and supporting the establishment of PPP platform for Vietnam SKJ FIP with the following objective, outcomes and interventions. The mentioned work expected in 2018 will be a good entry point for Oxfam’s further strategic investment in engaging with private sector as well as diversifying PPP models.

2. Objective and outcomes

The objective is to establish PPP platform for Vietnam SKJ FIP with a good governance structure that promotes the effective collaboration between public and private sector and a 3-year action plan that embeds the transparency, accountability and traceability as strategic multi-stakeholder’ collaboration as demonstrated sustainable development of seafood sector with 3 key outcomes:

• Effectively engage large seafood traders/processors into the development of monitoring mechanism, contributing to their transparency, traceability and accountability;
• Effectively develop its action plan and road-map that incorporates the representation and voices of small scale fishermen and gender-inclusive.
• At least two seafood traders/processors commit to take action to effectively address inequalities and traceability issues in their seafood value chains in Vietnam

3.  Key interventions and timeline

4. Requirements for selected organisation

The selected organisation must have:

1. Knowledge/experience and is working in fisheries sector, marine science, environment, strong background of MSC, FIP, sustainability development
2. Human resources with related qualifications and skills and experiences and with excellent English skills in both writing and speaking, with presentation, facilitation, documentation skills.
3. Good experience and communication and working with private sector;

5. Proposed submission

Proposal should be submitted by a cover letter with specific introduction and experience of organisation, CV of key delegated staffs for the Vietnam SKJ FIP, budget and detail implementation schedule indicating that it complies with the above requirements. The proposal must be sent by Apr. 25, 2018 to:

Ms. Do Thuy Ha, Private Sector Engagement Program Manager 

E-mail: [email protected] [1]