Call for a Consultant to Review and draft the National Policy for Wildlife: Zimbabwe
The Government of Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry (MECTHI), in partnership with the UNDP, is implementing a 6-year GEF funded project entitled “Strengthening Biodiversity and Ecosystems Management and Climate-Smart Landscapes in the Mid to Lower Zambezi Region of Zimbabwe,” known locally as the Zambezi Valley Biodiversity Project (ZVBP). The project is implemented under a National Implementation Modality (NIM) where MECTHI is the Implementing Partner. This is a child project being implemented under a global parent programme entitled “Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development.” The project seeks to address multiple threats to biodiversity and sustainable community development in the Lower Zambezi which include poaching and associated wildlife trade, retaliatory killing of wildlife, deforestation, and associated land degradation due to unsustainable agriculture and firewood consumption, and uncontrolled veld fires. The Zimbabwe project is therefore a multifocal area project whose objective is to promote an integrated landscape approach to managing wildlife resources, carbon and ecosystem services in the face of climate change in the protected areas and communal lands of the Mid to Lower Zambezi Regions of Zimbabwe. The project has 4 components namely: Component 1. Strengthening capacity and governance frameworks for integrated wildlife and woodland management and wildlife/forest crime enforcement in Zimbabwe; Component 2. Strengthening Zimbabwe's PA estate and CAMPFIRE Wildlife Conservancies in areas of global BD significance; Component 3. Mainstreaming BD and ES management, and climate change mitigation, into the wider landscape; and Component 4. Knowledge Management, M&E and Gender Mainstreaming
One of the outputs of Component 1 of the project is to review and update the national policy and regulatory framework in accordance with the new Zimbabwe Constitution and national development priorities. The policies and legislation to be reviewed include the National Wildlife Policy, the Parks and Wildlife Act, and forest legislation in accordance with National Forest Policy (2017).
The Zimbabwe Wildlife Policy was launched in 1992. The drafting of the new Zimbabwe Wildlife Policy has been necessitated by the need to align it to the new Constitution and also incorporate new and emerging issues. Land tenure and management of wildlife in the country, for example, have changed over the past two decades. One of the activities of the recently launched Zimbabwe National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025) is to align policies and legislation for wildlife management with the constitution. The NDS1 proposes the creation of community wildlife conservancies and partnerships as one of the strategies to achieve improved status of Protected Areas. Cases of human-wildlife conflict have increased as some communities have settled close to traditional wildlife areas. Management of human-wildlife conflict and other emerging issues should therefore be incorporated in the reviewed policy.
The ZVPB will support this alignment through the implementation of Component 1 of the project. UNDP, therefore, seeks the services of a consultant to lead the process of reviewing the Zimbabwe Policy for Wildlife.
Purpose of Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to review the Zimbabwe National Wildlife Policy and align it with the new Zimbabwe Constitution and incorporate emerging issues. The Policy must also incorporate guidance on the management of human-wildlife conflict in Zimbabwe.
For more information follow this link https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=98762
