UNDP Issues Branding RFP

Purpose:

• The Green Commodities Programme: In close consultation with key staff, senior advisors and other relevant staff and partners:

o  Identify GCP’s unique and most strategic public position in an increasingly crowded sustainability sector alongside key recommended strategic steps for achieving that positioning.

o Through a consultative process with key staff, sharpen and gain consensus on GCP’s key messaging so that its work is easily understood and inspires support.

o Apply the new messaging to key communications tools (brochure, web text, corporate presentation) and support the production of these.

• National Commodity Platforms: Taking into consideration the unique National Commodity Platform methodology developed by GCP and how this differs from Platforms developed by other organizations (e.g. IDH, RSPO, World Cocoa), develop:

o  Key messages and a visual identity to more clearly communicate the GCP-pioneered National Commodity Platforms approach at a global/ generic level.

o Apply the generic/ global brand to key communications tools and work with the GCP team to produce these, namely: brochure, presentation, theory-of-change graphic, short animated video (60-90 seconds).

o  Based on consultations with at least six national platform teams, make recommendations for applying the global/ generic brand to national contexts. Recommendations need to take into account national political environments, enabling us to easily tailor the generic branding to each country once the assignment is done.

• Green Commodities Community and the Good Growth Conference –Develop the visual identity and messaging for the Green Commodities Community and how it relates to and the promotion of the Good Growth Conference and GGP. This triangular relationship will needs to be clearly articulated, based on consultations with key staff and advisors working across all of these areas.

Background:

Most commodity sectors in developing countries are afflicted by poor production practices that lead to increasing pressure on ecosystems and fail to improve the livelihoods of rural communities. Poor production practices lead to negative environmental impacts such as biodiversity loss, deforestation, carbon emissions, soil erosion, depletion of water resources and contamination from chemicals. In fact, the largest driver of deforestation is the production of agricultural commodities. On the social side, working conditions in commodity production are often not in line with basic labor rights. Despite recent commodity booms, small producers are held in poverty, mostly due to low productivity and product quality. Despite the progress made through standards and supply-chain initiatives9, weaknesses in the underlying enabling environment limit change at a larger scale. An effective enabling environment consists of elements such as clear public policies, a well-functioning legal framework, clarity regarding land-use planning, effective enforcement mechanisms, accessible credit structures, and effective farmer extension services. As a result of the absence of these elements, work on commodity sustainability remains less effective than it could be, and costlier and more time-consuming than it should be. Improving the enabling environments will increase the chances of sector-wide change to sustainable production practices.

The Green Commodities Programme (GCP) exists to improve the national economic, social and environmental performance of agricultural commodity sectors. GCP works within agricultural commodity production in countries of UNDP operation where the programme can have significant impact on rural livelihoods, mitigate climate change, and maintain the ecosystem services and resilience of landscapes and seascapes.

The GCP has pioneered the concept of National Commodity Platforms to help governments facilitate shared visions and actions for sustainable commodity production among key stakeholders. Platforms are driven by the need for coordinated action by all commodity stakeholders around a common agenda. They bring together government officials, farmers, civil society groups and companies in a safe space to tackle the root causes limiting the sustainability of a particular sector by jointly devising:

• Clear public policies and legal frameworks
• Plans around land-use planning
• Effective ways of enforcing laws
• Finance and support that allows farmers to improve their production techniques.

All platforms we have helped set up are led and owned by government, driven by participants and enabled by UNDP through its country offices and the global Green Commodities Programme. A steering committee for the platform provides coordination and helps reach decisions by consensus. Committees also steer the drafting of National Action Plans. These important documents articulate all agreed courses of actions and help follow-up and monitor implementation. GCP operates in over 11 countries globally. To support the effective facilitation of these and new Platforms, GCP also supports a growing community of practice, called: The Green Commodities Community.

GCP is now coordinating the GEF Integrated Approach Pilot (IAP) program called: The Good Growth Partnership (GGP), which is an integrated “supply chain” approach to tackling the underlying root causes of deforestation from agriculture commodities, specifically beef, oil palm, and soy, which together account for nearly 70% of deforestation globally. The IAP Program will be delivered through a multi-agency consortium including WWF, IFC, UNEP, and CI and UNDP working across Brazil, Indonesia, Liberia and Paraguay. The program will involve a number of ‘child’ projects focused on sustainable production, responsible demand, enabling transactions and adaptive management and learning. UNDP GCP is the lead agency on the program and is also implementing the production project and the adaptive management and learning project. As part of this work, it is envisaged that the Green Commodities Community will evolve and grow to also encompass and respond to the learning needs of the Good Growth Partnership. This will involve the hosting of a major Good Growth Conference, or signature event, every second year, with the first such event scheduled for October 2018.

Scope of Work:

GCP will have oversight and is the leader of this work. Even so, a wide range of partners will need to be consulted to ensure that the final deliverables are fully agreed and coherent. As outlined above, this work will span three closely inter-related, but distinct, areas of the GCP portfolio. For this reason, it will be critical for the selected contractor to ensure full consultation and coherence across the different areas, ensuring that the final suite of brands and messaging flow seamlessly from one to another, providing the right level of recognition for the different partners involved.

Specifically, the selected contractor will be responsible for working through the following three key phases and key activities.

• Phase 1: Research and Discovery: This phase envisages four areas of research, namely:

o GCP – Conduct an in-depth market analysis to identify the most strategic positioning for GCP in the sustainable commodities space. This work should include consultations with key staff and advisors as well as research into other similar organizations working in the sustainability space, producing a report of findings and key recommendations.

o Platforms – Through consultations with key GCP staff/ advisors at the global level and staff of at least six Platforms at the national levels; as well as a desk review, identify, gain consensus on and produce a report that covers these key areas:

• The most important ways in which GCP-supported Platforms differs from those developed by other organizations (e.g. IDH, RSPO, World Cocoa).
• The most important information to communicate around the value and impact of Platforms as well as how they operate.
• The political environment related to communicating about Platforms at the national level, identifying the key issues that need to be taken into consideration with applying any future ‘generic’ Platform identity and messaging at this level.

o Green Commodities Community and Good Growth Conference – In close consultation with GCP as the coordinator of GGP, but also with partners as needed (WWF, UNDP-FI, GEF, IFC, CI), explore and gain consensus on the brand and messaging for the Green Commodities Community and how it relates to and the promotion of the Good Growth Conference and GGP. Making recommendation for key Conference marketing collateral to be produced.

o How the above work together – Finally, explore and articulates how the GCP, National Commodity Platforms as well as the Green Commodities Community and the Good Growth Conference branding and messaging should be used in relation to each other both at the global and national levels.

• Phase 2: Position, Brand and Messaging Development

o GCP: Taking into account what is learned during the ‘research’ phase, develop the GCP messaging, alongside tone-of-voice, as well as top-line messaging that articulates who GCP is, what it does and why it matters, also covering the different key areas of GCP work: Platforms, Partnerships, technical assistance, knowledge.

o Platforms: 1) Develop the National Commodity Platform messaging, tone-of-voice guidance, as well as top-line messaging that articulates what makes Platforms unique, their value, impact and how they work. 2) Also, develop and propose different creative routes to take the National Commodity Platform identity in a way that will differentiate. 3) Then create the identity consisting of a colour palette, typography, icons/ graphic language elements. 4) Develop usage guidelines, including how to use the identity across print, digital (social media), website and in video.

o Green Commodities Community and Good Growth Conference: 1) Develop messaging, tone-of- voice guidance, as well as top-line messaging covering the key purpose and value of the Green Commodities Community and how this related to the Good Growth Conference. Key messages related to the Good Growth Conference should also be covered in this document. 2) Also, develop and propose different creative routes to take the Green Commodities Community identity in a way that will differentiate. 3) Then, create the identity consisting of colour palette, typography, icons/ graphic language elements. 4) Develop usage guidelines, including how to use the identity at events, in print and online. 5) Finally, provide guidance on how the Conference should be branded, taking into consideration the different actors involved.

• Phase 3: Production

o Apply the GCP messaging to key products and develop a brochure, key website copy and a presentation.

o Apply the Platforms visual identity and key messaging to create some basic tools to help communicate the concept of National Commodity Platforms, namely: a brochure, presentation, theory-of-change graphic, short animated video (60-90 seconds).

o Work with key advisors to produce up to three different key Good Growth Conference collaterals, based on recommendations made by the selected contractor during the research phase (e.g. event brochure, poster etc).

Audience

• Donors
• Large Private Sector Companies
• National Governments
• Media
• NGOs/ Civil Society
• Intergovernmental Organizations
• Partners
• Producer organizations
• Consumers

Deliverable One: Deliver the following key reports, recommendations and guidance notes, based on the research phase.

• Produce a report that articulates the key findings and recommendations to emerge from the in-depth market analysis to identify the most strategic positioning for GCP in the sustainable commodities space.
• Produce a report that articulates the key findings to emerge from the research phase in relation to Platforms, covering: what make GCP-supported Platforms unique; the areas of consensus around the value and impact of Platforms as well as how they operate, and the political environment related to communicating about Platforms at the national level.
• Produce a report that articulates the consensus arrived at related to the brand and messaging for the Green Commodities Community and how it relates to the Good Growth Conference and GGP. Making recommendation for key Conference marketing collateral to be produced.
• Provide a guidance note on how the GCP, National Commodity Platforms as well as the Green Commodities Community and the Good Growth Conference branding and messaging should be used in relation to each other both at the global and national levels.

Deliverable Two: Produce and Deliver two sets of messaging documents covering GCP, Platforms and the Green Commodities Community.

• Produce a GCP key messaging document, which provides guidance on tone-of-voice, as well as compelling top-line messaging that articulates who GCP is, what it does and why it matters, also covering the different key areas of GCP work: Platforms, Partnerships, technical assistance, knowledge.
• Produce a key messaging document, which provides tone-of-voice guidance, as well as top-line messaging that articulates what makes Platforms unique, their value, impact and how they work. This should include guidance and recommendations for applying messaging to national contexts.
• Produce a key messaging document, which provides guidance on tone-of-voice, as well as top-line messaging to articulate the key purpose and value of the Green Commodities Community and how this related to the Good Growth Conference. Key messages related to the Good Growth Conference should also be covered in this document.

Deliverable Three: Brand Delivery and related guidance notes.

• Deliver an agreed global/ generic identity for Platforms consisting of a colour palette, typography, icons/ graphic language elements. This should include usage guidelines, including how to use the identity across print, digital (social media), website and in video.
• Provide a guidance note on how to best tailor the generic platforms identify to the national context.
• Deliver an agreed Green Commodities Community identity consisting of a colour palette, typography, icons/ graphic language elements. This should also include usage guidelines, including how to use the identity events, in print and online.
• Provide a guidance note on how the Good Growth Conference should be branded.

Deliverable Four: Production of key communication tools.

• Apply the GCP messaging to key products, delivering a brochure, key website copy related to GCP’s key areas of work and a presentation.
• Applying the visual identity and key messaging developed and work with key staff to create some basic tools to help communicate the global/ generic concept of National Commodity Platforms, namely: a brochure, presentation, theory-of-change graphic, short animated video (60-90 seconds).
• Work with key advisors to produce up to three different key Conference collaterals, based on recommendations made by the selected contractor during the research phase (e.g. event brochure, poster etc).

Due Date:

January 25

Address:

adquisiciones.rclac@undp.org

Edelman and Porter Novelli have government PR arms.