Consultancy service to support the Environmental and Social Safeguards for TRVC Project

Request for Expressions of Interest

For consultancy service to support the Environmental and Social Safeguards for TRVC Project

Organisation	SNV Netherlands Development Organisation
Project	“Transforming the Rice Value Chain for Climate Resilient and Sustainable Development in the Mekong Delta,” (TRVC project)
Assignment	Support the project’s Environmental and Social Safeguards activities
Number of consultants	01 national individual consultant
Location	Home based
Duration	January 2026 – December 2027
Starting date	January 2026

About SNV

Stichting SNV Nederlandse Ontwikkelings Organisatie, (hereinafter referred to as “SNV Netherlands Development Organisation” or “SNV”) is established as a Foundation (Stichting) in The Netherlands, and is a not-for-profit international development organisation, that applies practical know-how to make a lasting difference in the lives of people living in poverty. We use our extensive and long-term in-country presence to apply and adapt our expertise in agriculture, energy and water to local contexts.

SNV has been working in Vietnam since 1995 in partnership with government agencies, the private sector, and local authorities across the agri-food, energy, and water sectors. We’re particularly proud of the work we’ve done to support the country’s most remote and deprived areas to strengthen their capacity to reduce poverty.

About the TRVC project and the Assignment

Building on the 27-year-experience of implementing projects on sustainable agriculture development and market-based agrifood value chain development in Vietnam, and the success of the “AgResults Vietnam Emissions Reduction Challenge Project” (AVERP) in Thai Binh province from 2016 – 2021 with Pay-for-Results mechanism funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), SNV Netherlands Development Organization continues working with government partners at central and provincial levels to design and implement the project “Transforming Rice Value Chains for Climate Resilient and Sustainable Development in the Mekong Delta (TRVC)” (“TRVC Project” or “Project”). The TRVC project is implementing in two (02) key rice-growing provinces in the Mekong Delta, including An Giang and Dong Thap, previously the three (03) An Giang, Dong Thap, and Kien Giang, from 2023 to 2027. SNV, as the TRVC Project Manager (Project Manager), holds ultimate responsibility for the implementation and management of the Project’s activities and resources. SNV, coordinating with the Department of Crop Production and Plant Protection (DCPPP) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment (MAE) which is previously known as Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Provincial People’s Committee, and the Department of Agriculture and Environment (DAE) which previously known as Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) of 2 provinces An Giang and Dong Thap, previously the 3 provinces An Giang, Dong Thap and Kien Giang, co-implement and oversight the Project activities. The international verifier recruited by SNV (Verifier), along with the advisory council including international and Vietnamese scientists and policymakers (Advisory Council), will jointly monitor and supervise the verification process and results to ensure accuracy and transparency.

Using a Pay-for-Results (PfR) mechanism, the TRVC project incentivizes private enterprises in the Rice Value Chain (RVC) to scale-up innovative technologies, with a view to achieving higher economic outcomes for smallholder farmers (SHFs) and all RVC actors, improving rice quality and promoting inclusive social values, while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigating environmental footprints as co-benefits. In this way, the project is intended to play a catalytic role in transforming rice production and trading towards sustainability and promoting inclusive values in the most rice-intensive production provinces, contributing to sustainable and climate-resilient development in the Mekong Delta.

The project expects to support a shift to low emissions rice production for 200,000 hectares by the end of 2027. This will contribute to MAE’s ambitions to reach 1 million hectares nationally. The project provides cash incentives to those who participate and achieve GHG emissions reduction targets, with emissions verified by Independent Verifiers. Support is also provided to improve farming practices and promote the inclusion of men and women and those with disabilities, to ensure that benefits are shared amongst the community.

The results of TRVC Project are expected to be achieved as follows:

Formulating 10 – 20 inclusive Rice Value Chain companies
Outreaching 50 – 60 co-ops and 300,000 SHFs on the production scale of 200,000 hectares
Reducing equivalent to at least 200,000mt of CO₂ emissions
Achieving at least 30% profit for farmers from rice production

To date, the TRVC project successfully completed the implementation of the first two seasonal rice crops with the participation of ten rice value chain companies who are recognized as key competitors in the two project provinces of An Giang and Dong Thap.

TRVC overall aims to bring about significant positive environmental and social outcomes by incentivising the scaling of low-carbon, sustainable and climate resilient rice production practices. In so doing the programme aims to deliver climate adaptation and mitigation benefits through the widespread adoption of AWD (Alternate Wetting and Drying) and other approaches/ technologies that reduce the use of agro-inputs and water in the production of rice. These more sustainable production practices also offer other environmental benefits such as reduced pollution of waterways and associated benefits for biological diversity. From a social perspective the programme has a very specific emphasis on ensuring that smallholders and local farming communities (including ethnic minority peoples) participate in and benefit from the rice value chain transformations. Thus, ultimately the programme’s interventions should serve to increase rice yields and net profits of rice farmers.

However, certain risks remain due to the nature of the activities (large scale rice production), and inherent risks with agribusinesses in the sector (e.g. related to labour and working conditions of employees and supply chain workers, Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)/ Environmental Health and Safety (EHS), use of agro-chemicals etc). Moreover, the precautionary principle is applied e.g. as ethnic minority farmers will also be involved in the supply chains in the program’s target areas.

TRVC has prepared an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF). It provides a set of procedures, actions and measures for the avoidance, management/minimisation, and mitigation in response to the identified risks. These include:

Environmental and social due diligence checks to be performed on participating companies by SNV, including triangulation with local communities and other local stakeholders to eliminate companies with a bad record in terms of honouring contracts, treatment of employees and other cases of poor environmental and social performance.
Exclusion Checklist (e.g. including use of banned/listed agro-chemicals).
Screening and assessment of companies’ proposed competition approaches and technologies and existing ESMS, leading to the elaboration of a basic Environmental and Social Action Plan (ESAP) for each competitor to be implemented by the competitor.
Development of an Ethnic Minority Policy Framework (EMPF) for situations where ethnic minorities are affected by or involved in the program. This should be a simple document providing guidance on adequate free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) consultation with ethnic communities/households, engagement in the programme in a culturally appropriate manner, provision of recourse to a grievance redress mechanism and other measures that can be incorporated into ESAPs and associated monitoring.
Pre-competitive capacity building on the IFC Performance Standards and basic safeguards requirements for companies participating in the prize competition e.g., regarding stakeholder engagement/ consultation with communities; fair contracts; PPE to be provided; Trainings to be provided (e.g. on OHS, IPM) and in what form, including women and ethnic minority farmers etc.
Monitoring and reporting of ESAP implementation by companies and annual check by SNV. In reality, many companies will be required to implement certain standards for their certification standards.

SNV will perform checking and ensuring the implementation of the relevant safeguards by the companies regularly throughout the programme by checking reports submitted by companies and conducting spot checks. As competition manager, SNV will also establish and make programme stakeholders, including participating farmers, aware of a programme-based GRM for the receipt and address of complaints and grievances.

In responding to the mentioned assignment, SNV is seeking to engage a qualified national consultant to support the TRVC project’s Environmental and Social Safeguards to ensure its compliance with existing DFAT’s requirements and standards, in harmony with SNV and existing regulations of Viet Nam Government.

Reporting and coordination structure:

The Consultant will work under overall supervision of the Agrifood Sector Lead and the direct supervision of the TRVC Team Leader and in close coordination with the Project Coordinator as a Safeguards focal person and team.

Key assignments include:

Provide technical support to participating companies to achieve identified environmental and social safeguards outcomes following the set of procedures, actions and measures for the avoidance, management/minimisation, and mitigation in response to the identified risks (i.e., conduct screening and assessment of companies; support to develop ESAPs, track their implementation with timely advice,…);
Provide trainings on environmental and social safeguards to TRVC project stakeholders including participating companies, government partners, farmers with updated relevant safeguards policies from DFAT/SNV and IFC.
Produce the bi-annual, annual and ad-hoc reports on environmental and social safeguards following the standard and requirements of DFAT and SNV; and documenting learning and case study for publication.
Support and participate in meetings with DFAT experts and assessment teams.

The selected Consultants will enter a Framework Agreement for Professional Service (the “Agreement”) with SNV with expected timeframe from January 2026 – December 2027 covering the listed technical support areas. Based on the signed Agreement, the detailed tasks with allocated working days and timeline will be discussed and agreed under Tasks Orders for each mobilization period signed by the consultant and SNV authorized representative.

Expected experiences and qualifications

Educational background:

Master’s or above degrees in environmental/social sciences, development studies or related field

Professional experiences:

At least 7 years’ experience with the design, preparation and/or implementation of donor-funded projects and associated environmental and social safeguards requirements; related experience in the agriculture/environment sector in Viet Nam is a plus.
At least 3 years of experience working with private sector partners.
Familiarity with, knowledge of, and experience with the agriculture sector and especially rice sector is highly desirable
Native Vietnamese language speaker with proficient capability to write, present and communicate in English.

Others:

Strong training, facilitation, and presentation skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with proven ability to prepare clear and concise reports for donors and stakeholders
High attention to detail, and ability to work independently with limited supervision
Demonstrated experience in coordinating with multiple partners and delivering outputs within tight timelines.
Abilities to travel to Mekong Delta provinces when required.

Submission instructions:

Interested individual consultants should submit the Letter of Interest via the instructions in the link https://smrtr.io/vY_mv the following information:

Signed Letter of Interest includes the followings:

Attachment 1: CVs of individual consultants and proposed gross day rate
Attachment 2: Degrees and certificates
Attachment 3: Scanned copies of the identity cards of individual consultants.
Attachment 4: Due Diligence document, click LINK
Attachment 5: At least two (02) samples of their authored environment and social safeguards products and/or report to donor

EOIs are accepted by 17.00 p.m. December 17^th, 2025 (Vietnam time).

All questions regarding this call should be sent to [email protected]

Selection process

SNV will review all EOIs received in accordance with the guidelines and criteria in this solicitation. SNV reserves the right to exclude any EOIs that do not meet the guidelines. Please note that SNV is unable to provide detailed feedback to those EOIs that are not selected.

Step 1: SNV will shortlist selected EOIs. Successful applicants will be contacted by SNV for Framework Agreement for Consultancy Services or informed to keep on our consultant roster for two years.

Step 2: SNV will release Task Orders for the specific activities with the selected consultants based on the Framework Agreements signed accordingly.