Expert for the COMMUNICATIONS of SaveGREEN project activities in Ukraine (Project number: DTP3-314-2.3)

Expert for the COMMUNICATIONS of SaveGREEN project activities in Ukraine within the framework of the project INTERREG DTP SaveGREEN 'Safeguarding the functionality of transnationally important ecological corridors in the Danube basin'

Description

I. OBJECTIVE

The objective of the assignment is to provide communication services (written and printed layouts, publications in English and in Ukrainian, event organization communication side, reporting, social media, communication support for all activities of the project) implementation of SaveGREEN activities in Ukraine.

III. TIME HORIZON OF ACTIVITY AND LOCATION

The tasks should be carried out during the lifetime of the SaveGREEN Project, 5 December 2020 until 31 December 2022, preferably in a location in or around the Ukrainian part of the pilot area (Region of Transcarpathia).

IV. REQUIREMENTS FOR A GOOD COOPERATION

For the successful implementation of the tasks agreed within the present document, the expert will:

• Accept that the working language of the project is English, meanwhile, the local activities are implemented in Ukrainian, therefore all materials have to be delivered in both languages.
• Work closely with the contractor CEEweb for Biodiversity, UA focal Point WWF-Ukraine, Lead Partner WWF Central and Eastern Europe based in Austria, Work Package T1 Leader Environment Agency Austria, Work Package T2 Leader Association Zarand located in Romania, Work Package T3 Leader WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme Romania, and Work Package Communication Leader CEEweb based in Hungary.
• Communicate and cooperate with Pilot Area Leaders located in Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania.
• Participate in the following events physical or online, according to expert choice:
  • Project Partner and SCOM Meetings.
  • Local meetings with relevant stakeholders including face-to-face meetings for the establishment of good cooperation and the elaboration of the Cross-sectoral operational plans and related issues for the Ukrainian pilot sites.
  • Training event(s) in Ukraine.
  • Relevant Work Package meetings and conference calls when required.

V. Requirement on offer:

The bid shall contain:

• The applicant shall provide a detailed CV and reference list of previous experiences in this field proving their competencies appropriate for tender requirements.
• The detailed price offer of:
  • all fees/costs (including VAT if relevant) of professional services provided by the applicant in the separation order of the tender as in II. Tasks above, according to periods and tasks (including all technically and physically required materials and equipment, which make able applicant be able to full-fill the task, no separate reimbursement will be provided by the project);
  • event attending fees and expenses (no separate reimbursement will be provided by the project); and
  • all subcontractors’ fees – subcontractors may be involved in the project implementation in case it is communicated to CEEweb at least 15 days before the actual task implementation.

VI. Application criteria for individuals or organizations:

• Knowledge / practical experience in communication and event organization
• Ability to work in a team with a multi-cultural environment as well as individual with minimal directions
• Excellent knowledge of English and Ukrainian languages.
• The applicant can be an entrepreneur, or private company, or a consortium.
• The applicant shall declare that owns an IBAN number bank account, appropriate for European banking activities – Declaration form signed as Annex 2.
• The applicant shall declare the acceptance that all activity must full-filling all regulations of Interreg DTP as donor expectations and rules. – Declaration form signed as Annex 2.
• Applicant shall declare that able to provide invoice in electronic and hard copy formats acceptable according to Interreg and EU laws and rules. – Declaration form signed as Annex 2.
• Good working skills in Ukrainian and English languages.

VII. APPLICATION AND DEADLINE

Interested persons /organizations/companies should submit a letter of offer, signed and stamped (in case of an organization/company) alongside a detailed price offer. The offer should include a detailed budget for each task (including all fees, costs and VATs, foreseen expenses, and sub-contracting fees).

The offer will be rejected if the offer does not include all expected documents.

The decision will be based on the best price principle.

CEEweb reserves the right to withdraw the tender if less than 3 applications fulfil all requirements of the tender, or the price-offers exceeds the budget allocated to the tasks.

Applicants will be announced on the results of the tender latest by 5th December 2020, the winner will be provided with the first draft of the contract including all the payment conditions.

All application documents must be written in English sent by email to Viktória Selmeczy, vselmeczy@ceeweb.org, and/or ceeweb@ceeweb.org at CEEweb for Biodiversity.

The closing date for the tender is 4th December 2020.

For more information on CEEweb for Biodiversity, please visit www.ceeweb.org. for more information on the project read Annex 1 below. Further inquiries can be made through any of the contact points mentioned above.

Annexe 1. Summary of the SaveGREEN Project

Project’s full name: Safeguarding the functionality of transnationally important ecological corridors in the Danube basin

Duration: 1 July 2020 – 31 December 2022

Partners:

• Austria: WWF Central and Eastern Europe, Environment Agency Austria
• Bulgaria: Black Sea NGO Network; Bulgarian Biodiversity Foundation
• Czech Republic: Friends of the Earth, Olomouc branch; Transport Research Centre
• Hungary: CEEweb for Biodiversity; Szent Istvan University
• Romania: Zarand Association; EPC Environmental Consulting Ltd.; WWF Romania
• Slovakia: WWF Slovakia; the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava - SPECTRA Centre of Excellence of EU

Associated Partners:

• Austria: Austrian Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation, and Technology
• Bulgaria: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Executive Forest Agency; Southwestern State Enterprise SE – Blagoevgrad
• Czech Republic: Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic; Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic
• France: Infrastructure and Ecology Network Europe (IENE)
• Germany: Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection
• Greece: EGNATIA ODOS S.A.
• Hungary: NIF National Infrastructure Developing Private Company Limited; Ministry of Agriculture; Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate
• Romania: Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests; Ministry of Public Works, Development and Administration; Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Communications
• Slovakia: State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic; Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic; Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Slovak Republic; National Motorway Company
• Ukraine: M.P. Shulgin State Road Research Institute State Enterprise – DerzhdorNDI SE; Department of Ecology and Nature Resources of Zakarpatska Oblast Administration

Pilot areas:

1. Kobernausser forest in AT
2. Pöttsching, (AT)-Carpathian (SK) Corridor on the AT side;
3. Beskydy-Kysuce CZ-SK cross-border area, connecting the inner Carpathians and the periphery;
4. Novohrad-Nógrád SK-HU cross-border area between South Slovakia and North Hungary;
5. Zakarpattia region in Ukraine connecting Romania and Slovakia;
6. Mures valley (Arad- Deva), corridor area between Apuseni Mountains and main Carpathian arch in Romania;
7. Mures valley ( Târgu Mureş - Târgu Neamţ), Eastern Carpathians in Romania;
8. Rila-Verila-Kreishte corridor in Bulgaria connecting Bulgaria with Northern Macedonia and Serbia,

The PA leaders (EEA for AT, BBF for BG, FoE for CZ, SZIU for HU, EPC and AZ for RO, WWF SK for SK, WWF CEE and CEEweb for UA) will be the key actors in pilot area work supported by all other PPs and respective ASPs in the countries.

Background

In the Carpathians and other mountain ranges of the Danube region, plenty of ecological corridors are under threat — or, even more, have already been impeded — by poorly envisioned economic development. Among a few examples of this, the construction of linear transport infrastructure, energy supply infrastructure and settlements — especially in river valleys — and intensive agricultural, forestry and water management practices. If not adequately planned, all these man-made interventions can bring conflict for not addressing the critical need of maintaining ecological connectivity and the flow of multiple ecosystem services.

Ecological connectivity is the backbone of Green Infrastructure (GI). It provides ecosystem services and contributes to climate change resilience. Its ongoing rupture is, nevertheless, of growing gravity. This is especially the case in Eastern Europe where, due to historic and administrative capacity constraints, inter-ministerial cooperation and stakeholder involvement from different sectors is limited. Consequently, the functionality of GI decreases, impacting both humans and wildlife.

Moreover, mitigation measures, such as green bridges, are either often missing or dysfunctional due to inadequate design, location, and inappropriate land-use management. The most noticeable impacts: traffic kills and lowered reproductive success of key species dependent on functional corridors.

The challenge ahead: to reduce the pressure from such forms of economic activities on natural areas by minimising the impact on the natural processes and securing eco-connectivity — especially, in bottleneck locations. There is, indeed, some experience in the region on how to mitigate these impacts of economic development, but little is done to comprehensively monitor the functionality of mitigation measures and their effectiveness — so to learn from examples and integrate learnings into future plans.

Summary of the SaveGREEN project

The SaveGREEN project will demonstrate that, through integrated planning, the design of appropriate mitigation measures, and the adequate ways to maintain and improve the functionality of ecological corridors, can be achieved. The monitoring of the impact of such measures will, moreover, allow the project to derive the proper set of recommendations for follow-up actions and policy design.

SaveGREEN will work towards this aim by fostering cross-sectoral collaboration, building capacities for the replication of pilots, and upscaling results through improved policy frameworks. It will, thus, contribute to fostering the conservation of natural heritage and work towards sustainable resource use by strengthening joint and integrated approaches with key players affecting the integrity of these resources — including GI. In addition, SaveGREEN will foster the preservation of ecological corridors and identify where and how the action is needed towards restoring connectivity by addressing existing pressures and imminent threats stemming from economic development projects. Additionally, the project will address these challenges by improving national and European Union (EU) policy and funding frameworks, building the capacity of authorities and practitioners, standardising the monitoring of measures, and strengthening cross-sectoral platforms at the local, national and international levels.

The project will focus on the critical ecological corridors of the Alpine-Carpathian Corridor (Kobernausser forest and Pöttsching in Austria), Beskydy-Kysuce CZ-SK cross-border area, Novohrad-Nógrád SK-HU cross-border area, the Mures valley in Romania (Arad-Deva, Târgu Mureş – Târgu Neamţ), Zakarpattia region in Ukraine, and the Rila-Verila-Kraishte corridor in Bulgaria – all of them impacted by linear transport projects and unsustainable land use. Overall, it will create best practice examples in seven pilot areas with different landscape matrices.

The partnership covers key sectors to be involved in integrated planning of mitigation measures: nature conservation (i.e. ministries, agencies, authorities and NGOs), research and education (i.e. universities and a research institution), transport (i.e. ministries and motorway companies), consultancy business (i.e. a limited company), and Associated Strategic Partners (ASPs) from complementary sectors from Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

Main objectives

The project will aim to foster cross-sectoral and transnational cooperation, as well as building comprehensive know-how, towards the development of concrete solutions aimed at improving, restoring and preserving the functionality of key ecological corridors in Carpathian, Alpine and Bulgarian mountain valleys. It will cover these areas due to the overlapping concentration of both human activities and critical points for wildlife migration, which renders high degrees of conflict.

SaveGREEN’s main objective will be achieved through:

1. Increasing the knowledge and experience of relevant authorities and stakeholders via capacity building programmes and the dissemination of the key results coming from the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) projects TRANSGREEN, ConnectGREEN, and HARMON, as well as from SaveGREEN itself, on how to maintain and improve the functionality and financing of GI.
2. Cross-sectoral joint planning of robust mitigation measures for securing connectivity. This will be based on careful planning and design, secured funding, cross-sectoral dialogues, and sound scientific knowledge embedded in proper site management.
3. Establishing international and national governance frameworks, which are more supportive of maintaining ecological corridors for the preservation of Danube’s biodiversity values.

This new approach of involving, in a participatory way, key stakeholders from the relevant sectors (i.e. transport, forestry, agriculture, water management, and hunting) that affect the natural heritage and ecological connectivity creates the basis for generating long-term measures and solutions to the continuous and growing pressure on biodiversity. The aforementioned will be materialized in seven local action plans. Moreover, these will be used to improve the management plans of the relevant Natura 2000 sites, as well as the relevant strategic and development plans at the county/regional and national levels. Finally, they will also be used to formulate higher-level policy recommendations — at the Carpathian, Danube region, and EU levels) and improve the capacities for dealing with fragmentation, climate change and resilience.

Main expected results

The project expects that, through the improvement of cross-sectoral cooperation in the fields of nature conservation, natural assets management (i.e. wildlife, forests, water), transport, and land use/spatial planning, it will enhance GI coherence in the Carpathian, Alpine and Balkan mountain valleys. It will do so by planning and implementing coherently integrated mitigation measures to minimize the negative impact of economic development.

Key stakeholders — including public authorities — will be trained on:

1. Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) targeting ecological connectivity;
2. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for projects in ecological corridors;
3. Developing integrated mitigation measures for the maintenance of corridors;
4. Developing action plans for Green Infrastructure improvement in the pilot areas — with clear and adequate technical specifications; and
5. Securing funding for the implementation of mitigation measures.

The local cross-sectoral operational plans developed with stakeholder groups —for at least seven locations across seven countries in the Danube region — will present innovative and integrated solutions for increasing ecological functionality in the respective areas.

The participatory approach for development will create ownership by those who have the power to implement the plans. Moreover, stakeholder groups in the pilot areas will benefit from the uptake of learnings from other pilot areas with complementary foci (e.g. agriculture, forestry, water management) and results of the ConnectGREEN and TRANSGREEN projects at the transnational level.

At the policy level, the new national programmes for the disbursement of EU funds will include financial allocations for environmental measures.

Strategic documents on sustainable transport and green infrastructure, ecological connectivity and large carnivore’s populations and their sustainable management and conservation will be considered by the upcoming 6th Conference of the Parties to the Carpathian Convention (COP6), while ecological connectivity will be mainstreamed into EU, EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), and cross-macro-regional policy.

Activities

• Development of a standardized monitoring methodology for structural and functional connectivity
• Development of an application toolbox for the monitoring of structural and functional connectivity
• Development of a capacity-building programme
• Engagement and cooperation with relevant stakeholders of specific pilot areas
• Development of cross-sectoral operational plans to safeguard the functionality of ecological corridors in the pilot areas
• Implementation of selected actions of the local cross-sectoral operational plans
• Support the mainstreaming of ecological connectivity into EU and global policies through cooperation among macro-regional strategies (i.e. EUSDR and the Carpathian Convention)
• Development of recommendations towards the integration of mitigation measures/GI into sectoral policy and decision making
• Strengthening of cross-sectoral cooperation among key players, promotion of project results in the Danube basin and beyond, and capacity building at the national level
• The organisation of public events
• Digital communications & development of promotional materials

Please find more information at www.interreg-danube.eu/savegreen.

Annexe 2. Declaration Form to the tender procedure of SaveGreen Interreg DTP project implementation

Hereby, I ……………………………………………………………………………(Name/ company name), declare that:

1. I agree that CEEweb for Biodiversity (CEEweb) restore my personal data for the time of the tendering process, as the contractor calling this tender of Interreg SaveGreen project implementation, I apply for right now.
2. A accept that the working language of the project is English, meanwhile, the local activities’ language is Ukrainian, therefore all materials must be handed in English, too.
3. I already have or will open an IBAN numbered bank account by the time of the first instalment of the project implementation payment, and I am willing to provide it to CEEweb to receive a bank transfer.
4. I accept that all activity in SaveGREEN Interreg DTP project must be implemented full-filling all regulations of Interreg DTP and EU laws as donors of the project.
5. I have the ability and willingness to provide invoices in electronic (e-invoice or scanned) and hard copy formats (sent by post) acceptable according to Interreg rules and EU laws, as both are the minimum requirements of any payment to be transferred.

Date:

Official signature of the applicant and official stamp of the company: