Please note the following consultancy opportunities are not ClientEarth contracted roles but consultancy contracts.
Endline evaluation of ClientEarth’s ‘Building legal foundations for sustainable forests & livelihoods’ programme
Consultancy objective: ClientEarth is searching for consultant(s) to undertake an endline evaluation of our NICFI-funded programme
Duty station: Remote work and international travels
Type and duration of contract: Consultancy contract, from 15 February to 31 March 2026
Closing date: 28 January 2026. Please note applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received.
Reporting to: Catherine Lalonde, Head of FOLU African Partnerships
ClientEarth’s NICFI-funded activities run from 1 May 2021 to 31 March 2026. As the programme period is coming to an end, we are commissioning an endline evaluation to assess overall performance, effectiveness, and progress against the outcomes and goals set out in the original proposal.
The endline evaluation is a critical opportunity to determine the impact and extent to which the programme has achieved its intended results, understand the context that shaped implementation, assess the relevance and efficiency of our approach and identify recommendations that can improve ClientEarth’s work in the region, in terms of both substantive content and its way of working. It will also explore how ClientEarth’s partnerships, methodologies, and delivery mechanisms contributed to, or constrained, programme outcomes.
Findings from this evaluation will inform ClientEarth’s organisational learning, future programme design, and strategic programmes within our work in Africa.
Download the full terms of reference and application requirements
Case studies for ClientEarth’s ‘Building legal foundations for sustainable forests & livelihoods’ programme
Consultancy objective: ClientEarth is searching for a consultant to support in developing case studies and stories of change
Duty station: Remote work and internal travels to Liberia and/or Gabon
Type and duration of contract: Consultancy contract, between 15 February and 31 March 2026
Closing date: 28 January 2026. Please note applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received.
Reporting to: Catherine Lalonde, Head of FOLU African Partnerships
The objective of the consultancy is to produce compelling and ethically grounded case studies showcasing how programme interventions have contributed to meaningful change in the lives of participants and communities. The consultant will use a combination of written narrative, photography, and (where feasible) short-form video documentation.
The case studies will be from individuals, communities, or institutions that have benefitted from the programme in Liberia and / or Gabon. The stories produced by this consultancy will contribute to donor reporting, resource mobilisation, organisational learning, stakeholder engagement, and public communications.
Expansion of Electricity Markets in the Philippines
Terms of Reference
Background
These instructions seek an independent legal opinion from a qualified lawyer or a team of qualified lawyers with significant power markets experience in the Philippines and abroad on how to evolve the Philippine power sector’s market architecture so that spot, reserve and capacity markets together with auction-based bilateral contracts, and retail competition mechanisms operate in a coherent, investment-attractive framework.
The Philippine Energy Plan (2023–2050) projects electricity peak demand rising from 16,596 MW (2022) to 68,483 MW by 2050. The projected 5.2% average annual growth in demand necessitates a several-fold expansion of installed capacity. To achieve this, a suite of market instruments have been rolled out: the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) for energy trading; reserve markets for ancillary services; green Green Energy Auction Program (GEAP) for long-term offtake agreements for renewable energy (RE); Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA) for customer choice; the Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) for green customer choice; and now a capacity market to support resource adequacy. While these mechanisms each address specific needs, their roll-out raises questions around overlapping jurisdiction, contractual hierarchies, risk allocation, and incentives. Counsel should assess whether the current legal framework supports a seamless transition toward a multi-layered market that delivers a reliable, low-carbon power supply, and attracts private capital.
Briefly, counsel is requested to advise on (1) the legal and regulatory gaps, ambiguities, and jurisdictional overlaps that hinder the expansion of the Philippines’ existing power markets specifically the WESM, reserve market, and the proposed capacity market, amidst the existence of bilateral contract mechanisms such as the GEAP, power supply agreements (PSAs), RCOA and GEOP; (2) the statutory, contractual, and institutional reforms necessary to enable coherent market operations, ensure resource adequacy, and incentivize renewable energy participation while safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection; (3) how to integrate policies governing the WESM, reserve market, GEAP, PSAs, RCOA, GEOP and the proposed capacity market into a unified and coherent system accounting for the impact of one market and/or form of bilateral contracting on the others; (4) the legal and regulatory refinements required to spur participation and investment, particularly by renewable energy generators, whilst safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection, and avoiding carbon lock-in; and (5) how other jurisdictions have structured, governed and regulated multi-layered electricity markets, including lessons learned, legal safeguards, and best practices that may be adapted to the Philippine context.
Request for Advice
Counsel is requested to provide an independent legal opinion on the following matters:
1. What are the legal and regulatory gaps, ambiguities, and jurisdictional overlaps that hinder the expansion of the existing power markets amidst the existence of bilateral contract mechanisms?
a. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently inhibit RE participation or expansion in the WESM, reserve market, or proposed capacity market, especially in a system where bilateral contracts (GEAP, PSAs, ASPAs, RESAs, RCOA, GEOP) still dominate?
a. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently prevent these markets and bilateral contracts from operating as a unified, dispatch-consistent system, thereby reinforcing reliance on inflexible fossil generation?
b. Which laws, rules, and regulatory gaps or overlaps currently create structural advantages for fossil fuel plants (e.g., must-run rules, non-penalized outages, priority dispatch) that are inconsistent with a high-renewable system?
2. What reforms are needed to ensure coherent market operations, support resource adequacy, and incentivize RE participation while safeguarding reliability, affordability, consumer protection, and competition?
a. How do existing rules create barriers for RE, storage, or new entrants; privilege fossil incumbents; or create cash-flow disadvantages for flexible portfolios?
b. Do current retail rules (switching windows, SoLR, RESA pass-through provisions) fairly reflect the risks of RES/aggregators shifting to clean supply? If not, what reforms would lower barriers to RE-aligned retail competition and avoid unintended fossil lock-in?
c. Which market rules or omissions allow anti-competitive behaviour (e.g., withholding, opaque deratings, strategic outages), and what safeguards should be adopted to prevent fossil generators from exploiting these gaps?
d. What transparency requirements (outage data, deratings, constraint forecasts, load forecasts) and publication schedules are necessary to support RE-friendly bidding, hedging, planning, and competition?
e. Which provisions in PSAs, ASPAs, RESAs, GEAP awards, and related regulatory requirements:
i. Lock buyers into long-term fossil commitments (e.g., take-or-pay, minimum offtake, fuel indexation)?
ii. Prevent DUs, RES, or large customers from shifting to cheaper RE or new market products (reserve, GEAP, capacity)?
iii. Hinder future co-optimization of energy, reserves, and capacity or inhibit sub-hourly dispatch?
iv. What model riders or contractual reforms are needed to remove fossil lock-in, enable flexible procurement of renewables, and maintain reliability and investment certainty?
3. What must be done to integrate rules governing WESM, the reserve market, GEAP, PSAs, RCOA, GEOP, and the proposed capacity market into a unified system that accounts for how one market or contract type affects others?
a. What framework (payment priority, collateral, cure periods, invoice cycles, default waterfall) should apply across energy, reserves, capacity, retail, and bilateral charges to ensure fair and dispatch-consistent payment flows?
b. What model PSA and ASPA clauses (curtailment priority, reserve activation, deliverability definitions) are needed to align these contracts with WESM dispatch, reserve market co-optimization, and the future capacity market?
c. How should ASPA rules be updated, on scheduling, activation, settlement, and netting, to avoid overpaying fossil units and enable participation of RE-based and storage-based reserves?
4. What are the legal and regulatory refinements required to spur participation and investment, particularly by renewable energy generators, whilst safeguarding reliability, affordability, and consumer protection, and avoiding carbon lock-in?
a. What legal or regulatory refinements are needed to ensure that RE, storage, and demand-side resources can compete fairly with fossil generators in all markets (energy, reserves, capacity)?
b. What institutional reforms (governance, coordination, rule-making, oversight) are needed to ensure the Philippines can sustain a multi-market, high-renewables system?
5. How have other jurisdictions structured, governed and regulated multi-layered electricity markets?
a. What international market structures, safeguards, and rule-change processes help prevent fossil lock-in and support high levels of renewable penetration?
b. Which lessons, legal safeguards, and best practices are most relevant to the Philippines?
c. How can these be adopted into the Philippine context?
d. What international pitfalls should the Philippines avoid?
Counsel is requested to include in the analysis all relevant laws, policies, regulations, data, and domestic and international (when applicable) jurisprudence on the issue and provide relevant advice and recommendations.
Tentative Timeframe
10 December 2025: Start of Engagement
30 December 2025: Submission of preliminary analysis (first draft) and invoice
05 January 2026: ClientEarth comments
12 January 2026: Submission of final output and slide deck
As needed: Discussion/update calls.
Renumeration
There is a maximum budget of GBP 10,000 inclusive of UK VAT. Applicants are requested to include their proposed rate as part of their submission.
Application procedure
Please send your curriculum vitae to CYu@clientearth.org by 09 December 2025 23:59 PHT.
Please include at least two relevant written samples of past work in your submission. If co-authored, please describe your contribution to the written output. Please note that applications will be reviewed as soon as they are received.
Teams may also apply, provided that each team member submits an individual CV and sample written work, and the application must clearly set out the division of responsibilities among team members and the corresponding allocation of the budget.