Introduction

Natural Justice is a non-profit organization rooted in the struggles of communities in Africa. As a team of pioneering lawyers and legal experts, we specialize in human rights, environmental, climate, land, indigenous, and heritage law, in pursuit of social, climate, and environmental justice.

We strive to enhance the collective rights of people and protect the sacred relationships that Indigenous people and local communities have with nature. Our work is informed by the values, knowledge, and self-determination of the communities which we stand in solidarity with.

Through legal empowerment, research, policy influencing, and our Litigation Plus approach, we work in alliance with communities and like-minded coalitions to support communities to know the law, use the law, and shape the law.

Natural Justice’s focus includes enhancing community access to land and governance of natural resources, contributing to the struggle against harmful extractive and infrastructure development supporting processes for recognizing traditional knowledge and access and benefit sharing, supporting community rights within conservation and customary use of biodiversity, and strengthening community actions towards the climate crisis.

Together with the communities we work with, we aim to play a key role at the national, regional, and international levels by influencing policy and laws to recognize and enhance the rights of Indigenous people and impacted communities and environmental defenders.

We are headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa with regional hubs in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dakar, Senegal. Natural Justice also has additional staff in Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Somalia.

Background to the African Environmental Defenders Initiative

African Environmental Defenders play an important role in protecting their lands and ecosystems from unsustainable industrial development, logging and extractive projects. However, the nature of their work can expose them to significant risks. Throughout the world, there are ever-increasing incidents of attacks against environmental defenders.

The African Environmental Defenders Initiative was instituted by Natural Justice on Human Rights Day, 2019. The Initiative’s overall objective is to enhance respect for the work of African Environmental Defenders and advocate for and secure their human rights. The Initiative aims to minimise or manage the risks faced by Defenders in Africa by offering support to enhance their resilience in terms of protection against threats.

Through the Initiative, Natural Justice established the African Environmental Defenders Fund. This is a joint programme by Natural Justice and various partners including International Land Coalition, African Activists for Climate Justice (AACJ), , Milkywire, and ICCA Consortium which provides emergency funding to land, and environmental Defenders in Africa whose lives are under threat due to the nature of their work.

The Fund focuses on the specific needs arising from an emergency situation linked to one or more of the following aspects:

a. Temporary relocation costs.

Relocation becomes necessary where a Defender faces a threat of violation of their rights or risks being exposed to other types of danger by his/her continued presence at a particular place or territory.  

b. Short term legal support

For environmental and land defenders who are either threatened with arrest, arbitrarily arrested, detained, maliciously prosecuted or summoned by government authorities, this Fund can be used to cover the cost of legal representation to secure the defender’s freedom when the full trial is going on. The goal is to prevent any imminent or continued human rights abuses occurring during the full trial process. This could include: bail/bond; the costs of representation by a lawyer where the defender is summoned by the authorities; temporary injunctions; conservatory orders where there is threatened or actual forced evictions; anticipatory bail for defenders who are apprehensive that they might be arrested or re-arrested.  

c. Urgent medical help.

Environmental Defenders who, in the course of their work, sustain injuries or become critically ill as a consequence of any forms of physical violence propagated against them, can be supported by the Fund.

d. Application for bail in exceptional circumstances.

e. The cost of hiring private security for the defender or expenses related to the installation of security infrastructure.

Scope and Purpose

The purpose of the consultancy is to assess and draw conclusions about the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and coordination of the AEDF in providing easily accessible, timely and flexible resources to respond to the emergency needs of African land and environmental defenders.

Methodology

The consultant will be expected to describe the adopted methodology to conduct this evaluation during the inception phase. In general, it is foreseen that the evaluation will be based on a desk review (AEDF’s documentation including collected data on selected and rejected applicants, complementary literature on defenders in studied countries), and on a series of remote interviews with beneficiaries or grantees and other informants such as AEDF partners, fund committee members, funders/donors, etc.

Evaluation criteria and questions

Relevance / coherence

• Suitability of the AEDF as a mechanism for responding to the threats faced by African Environmental Defenders?  
• Visibility of the emergency fund – Is the information about the fund circulating and reaching its intended audience? How can the emergency fund improve its visibility, particularly at remote and local level? 
• Are there any limitations to the application process? How can they be improved or resolved? 
• What are the procedural/operational strengths and weaknesses of the administrative framework of the emergency fund?  
• Among other similar mechanisms (if any), what is the specific value of the AEDF, and are there specific gaps that the AEDFs could be covering, moving forward?  
• Among other similar mechanisms in Africa (if any), what is the specific/added value of the AEDF in the broader context of protection and support for African environmental Defenders? Are there specific gaps that the emergency fund could consider moving forward? 

Effectiveness

• To what extent is the AEDF providing effective responses to the threats and risks experienced by AEDs? Are the available emergency responses sufficient to ensure the adequate safety and protection of environmental defenders? 
• Are there other effective forms of emergency response that could be provided, to assist and support African environmental defenders, in addition to what is currently available under the emergency fund? 
• Could any additional data / elements on applicants and defenders be collected, and why for? For what usage ?

Efficiency  

• How efficient are the fund’s allocation process and distribution mechanisms (including speed and efficiency in funds’ disbursements)? What are the main challenges affecting the efficiency of the AEDF, their impact on applicants, and what improvements could be proposed?  

Available AEDF documentation

• The AEDF database, rules of procedure and operational systems
• Funding information and data
• Timelines on the application process and awarded grants
• AEDF reports on country contexts, emerging trends   and existing data on lethal and non-lethal attacks (if required)

Duration: 20 days (excluding weekends)

Qualifications of Consultant

• Proven Expertise and extensive experience in human rights, particularly in the context of defender protection and support.
• Expertise in financial management, preferably with experience in emergency support/grants.
• Familiarity with land and environmental rights issues in Africa
• Ability to communicate finding clearly and provide actionable recommendations for improvement
• Demonstrable experience in critically analyzing key issues, and drawing practical conclusions and recommendations.
• Familiarity with risk assessment methodologies and crisis response mechanisms
• Ability to analyse and integrate diverseuantitative and qualitative data from a wide range of sources
• Fluency in both English and French.

Management and Support

The consultant will be supervised by the coordinator for the African environmental defenders initiative (AEDI) in collaboration with sub-regional AEDI focal points (West, East and Southern Africa). Their responsibility will include:

• Providing necessary administrative, coordination and logistical support to the consultant.
• Facilitate consultant’s access to specific information, key informants and expertise necessary to perform the evaluation.

Deliverables

1. Preliminary draft report, soliciting comments and inputs from all relevant stakeholders.
2. Final report in both English and French that includes detailing the findings of the AEDF review, and a clear and comprehensive outline of well targeted and actionable recommendations to improve the performance of the Emergency Fund within the countries or that raise any policy issues.
3. An operating model for the emergency fund with a visual representation of how the emergency fund can efficiently deliver emergency support to its beneficiaries and execute its mandate.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested applicants can apply by submitting the following documents to emergencyfund@naturaljustice.org.

1. A technical proposal outlining the methodology and work plan
2. A detailed CV with 3 traceable references
3. A portfolio of work related to the scope of the consultancy
4. A detailed financial proposal indicating the proposed daily rate for the days of the consultancy.

Deadline for applications: 7 March 2025