Team Leader- GIS Consultant

 INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT SCOPE OF WORK

A. DAI ORGANIZATION AND VALUES

DAI Global LLC. is a development company with corporate offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, EU, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Palestine and implementing project operations worldwide including Vietnam. DAI tackles fundamental social and economic development problems caused by inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability. DAI works on the frontlines of global development, transforming ideas into action and actions into impact. We are committed to shaping a more livable world.

DAI and its employees are committed to confronting racism and holding ourselves accountable for positive change within the company and in the communities, cultures, and countries in which we live and work. DAI is committed to attracting and retaining the best employees from all races and backgrounds in our continued effort to become a better development partner.

DAI upholds the highest ethical standards. We are committed to the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment as well as other ethical breaches. All of our positions are therefore subject to stringent vetting and reference checks.

B. PROJECT BACKGROUND

DAI is implementing The USAID Sustainable Forest Management Project (the Project) in Vietnam to work with the Government of Vietnam (GVN), with MARD as its main counterpart, to reduce carbon emissions associated with deforestation and degradation of natural forests, and increase carbon sequestration by improving timber plantations management. The Project will implement a “Green Prosperity” approach that strengthens local communities’ ability to protect their natural resource base and reduce emissions while building a strong foundation for sustainable livelihoods and equitable economic growth.

The Project will work in seven provinces (Lao Cai, Son La, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Quang Tri, Quang Nam) and focus on five objectives:

1. Improve and expand community forest management
2. Increase conservation-friendly enterprises in forest-dependent communities
3. Increase functionality of law enforcement system for forest crimes
4. Improve production forest management practices
5. Mobilize domestic resources for forest management and protection

The Project will be implemented during the period 2020-2025 by DAI in collaboration with RECOFTC and Preferred by Nature as partners, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) as the counterpart and the Management Board of Forestry Projects (MBFP) as project owner.

C. OBJECTIVE

Currently, the Provincial Funds are constructing PFES maps using Mapinfo software with the support of the v5PFES tool running on Mapinfo platform. The update and standardize process of the annual forest change by the Forest Protection Department from shapefiles to Mapinfo tab format are encountering errors including font errors, coordinate system deviations, unable to update new watersheds, unable to automatic export/import tables of PFES areas, tables of PFES for each watershed, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to have a new tool to update the PFES map using the open source QGIS software, in order to ensure the consistency of the data fields, the coordinate system of the forest change monitoring map and PFES map. By this SOW, we are looking for an individual GIS consultant based in Hanoi to develop an add-on to QGIS to meet this requirement.

D. SCOPE OF WORK AND TASKS

The selected consultant will have to work as a team member with two other consultants of IT and forestry to develop add-on to QGIS and carry out other activities as below:

1.     Workplan development

The GIS consultant as team leader will have to collaborate with other team members to develop workplan to carry out this consultancy. The workplan must include roles, responsibility, tasks of each member to complete the consultancy and be approved by HB provincial fund, VNFF and the Project.

2.     Provide information of PFES map development requirement

The GIS consultant is in charge of providing to the IT consultant information of requirements to develop PFES map as regulated in relevant legal documents and also challenges, error, problems that provincial funds are facing with when developing PFES maps and GIS application to produce PFES maps.  

3.     Meet and consult with provincial and central partners

The consultant will meet with Hoa Binh provincial fund, Hoa Binh PPMU, Hoa Binh FPD, VNFF and 3 other provincial funds of Nghe An, Quang Nam, Quang Tri together with other team members to discuss and identify their needs for developing use case of the add-on.

4.     Define and develop user story

As GIS expert, the consultant will lead the defining of user story from which to provide information to the IT consultant for developing the software.

5.     Define and develop use cases

GIS consultant will lead in collaboration with other consultants in defining the use cases during the development of the tool.

6.     Working with IT consultant to integrate following feature to the add-on:

6.1.  Standardize data

• Extract data from updated forest cover changes in FORMIS system;
• Change font from TCVN3 to Unicode encoding back and forth;
  (This is a well-known error when converting data from FORMIS system. The consultant will need to be familiar with this error in order to coordinate with the IT consultant to solve this problem).
• Standardize data from FORMIS as inputs for PFES maps.
  (The consultant will need to be familiar with the FORMIS standard format and structure. He also needs to be familiar with some errors caused during development).

6.2.  Mapping PFES

• Construct data structure (data fields structure);
• Support to identify forest areas to provide environmental services of environmental services users regulated in Decree 156/2018/ND-CP: Identify natural area of watershed area, forest area of environmental services providing area of services users; update annual area providing forest environmental servicesarea;
• Update payment areas, watershed areas;
• Update the forest area which has not been paid for PFES due to the investment from the government budget, other sources, household production of acacia plantations, etc.;
• Check and identify errors between data fields;
• Update forest owner ID;
• Update the communes with limited condition;
• Update the K factor;
• Determine the payment level for each forest plot;
• Update the forest change/payment change for every year;
• Update changes in forest owners and contract recipients.

6.3.  Construct table structure and query table

• Table of forest plots eligible for PFES payment from every basin to every village/hamlet according to the form No. 01, 02 Appendix V Decree 156/2018/ND-CP dated November 16, 2018 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Forestry;
• PFES payment table for each forest plot inside the watersheds area;
• Annual table of revenue and expenditure according to form No. 08, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP;
• Table of annual schedule of revenue and expenditure according to the form No. 10,11, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP;
• Prepare and present the report on PFES payment results according to the form No. 16, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP;
• Export to data table summarizing total forest area in watershed by forest types regulated in Circular 33/2018/TT-BNNPTNT.

6.4.  Data management

• Divide map layers by administration boundary and watershed;
• Create folder to manage database;
• Color map by forest types, forest source, payment level;
• Integrate satellite image interpretation to identify early warning of forest lost in the PFES payment area.

6.5.  Export PFES maps (for printing)

• On the basis of the PFES map/database built in sections 1.2 and 1.4, extract the PFES payment map and its attributes related to the forest owners including: households, individuals, communities, groups of households, forest owners as organizations and commune People's Committees assigned by the Government to manage forests.
• Build automatic layout editing features to facilitate the extraction and printing of complete PFES maps, including components such as: main payment map; a map of the location of the payment area relative to the provincial, district and commune boundaries; annotate the elements displayed on the map; signing frame.

7.     Develop test case and test add-on before training for provincial funds

The GIS consultant has responsibility to develop a test case and test the add-on once the first version is developed by the IT consultant. The add-on needs to be checked to ensure it has all features listed above before it is introduced to provincial funds and VNFF.

8.     Lead to develop guidelines/Manual of add-on use

The consultant will lead and work with other team members to develop manual or guidelines of the add-on for users and administrator. The manual can be in MS Word or PDF file and in video format but it should be user-friendly use designed.

9.     Develop training documents

The consultant will lead in developing training documents for provincial funds and VNFF. The training documents should include exercises for practicing the add-on during the trainings. The training documents can be in MS Word, PFD or any other Project acceptable format.

10.  Design and deliver training for provincial funds/VNFF and FPD

The GIS consultant will work with other team members and with the Project, PPMU, VNFF to prepare and offer trainings and consultant will be the trainer.

11.  Provide technical support for provincial funds/VNFF/FPD to test add-on

After the trainings, 4 provincial funds/VNFF, FPDs will implement the add-on for testing within 3 months. During this time, there might be errors, difficulties, or technical support needs from provincial funds, FPD, for which the consultant will provide technical support/guidance as needed.

12.  Provide feedback to finalize the add-on and handover to SFM’s partner

The GIS consultant is responsible for providing feedback to the IT consultant to fix bugs, errors coming up during 3-months of software being using by the provincial funds/VNFF. The final version of the add-on must receive no objections/comment from the provincial funds, FPD, PPMU and the Project before handing over. The tool will be verified and approved by VNFF.  

13.  Develop introduction document of the tool

The GIS consultant will lead in developing a brief introduction of the tool in English. The introduction should aim to target readers of USAID, the Project, any other potential users who are interested on the tool. The introduction should be well designed and have maximum 6 pages of A4 size paper.

14.  Supportand guarantee service

The GIS consultant must be available to provide technical support for provincial funds for one year after handing over to VNFF, HB fund, during which the consultant must be available to provide support service if the provincial funds, VNFF are facing problems in using the tool for PFES map development, and if VNFOREST have new guidance for developing PFES maps especially with others like the new forest environmental services. GIS consultant has the responsibility to highlight what needs to be updated or fix to the IT consultant.

E. LOCATION

Hanoi and travel to provinces for training.