EU/BMZ Joint Action ‘Support to Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) in Lesotho’, Support to Management Processes (Monitoring, Facilitation, Digitalisation and Organisational Development)

Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is of utmost importance to the Orange-Senqu River Basin and the SADC region at large. Lesotho is the ‘water tower’ of the region. All water related interventions in Lesotho are therefore transboundary in nature and have an immediate impact downstream. Lesotho is a signatory to the SADC Treaty and the revised protocol on Shared Watercourses (2000) as well as a founding member of the Orange-Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM). The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has been supporting the SADC water sector for several years through the programme ‘Transboundary Water Management in the SADC region’ (TWM) implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). The fifth phase of TWM runs from 1/2020 to 12/2023 and includes a major component co-financed by the European Union (EU) in Lesotho. The programme ‘Support to Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) in Lesotho’ — referred to in the following as ‘the ICM programme’ or ‘the Action’ — was agreed between the Government of Lesotho and the EU Delegation to the Kingdom of Lesotho in the Financing Agreement signed in April 2019. The Financing Agreement outlines the intended results to be achieved with funding from the EU through the 11th EDF with Lesotho (EUR 27.5 m); the BMZ through the TWM programme (EUR 6 m) and the Government of Lesotho (GoL) (EUR 5 m). The EU and BMZ financial contributions are managed through a Contribution Agreement with GIZ as the implementing agency, while the GoL contribution is considered a parallel financing managed by the GoL. The overall objective of the action is: ‘ICM facilitates socio-economic development and adaptation to climate change in Lesotho’, while the specific objective runs: ‘ICM institutionalised and under full implementation in Lesotho, based on gender equality and climate adaptation principles’. The envisaged Outputs are as follows: 1) effective and efficient, gender sensitive and climate-resilient policy framework for ICM is developed and applied; 2) effective and efficient institutions for ICM are established, with equitable representation of women and youth; 3) capacity, skills and knowledge of public, private sector and civil society for sustainable ICM is facilitated; 4) ICM measures are implemented; 5) capacity strengthened for coordination, monitoring, supervision and general programme management. The action is managed by a GIZ team together with counterparts from the GoL's national ICM Coordination Unit (ICU). GIZ is seeking to procure the services of a contractor (consultancy firm or consortium) to provide support to various management processes that are grouped into four work packages: supporting the monitoring system for the action, facilitating team events and planning workshops, supporting organisational development and supporting digitalisation.