SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Feed the Future (FTF) Enabling Environment for Food Security (EEFS)
- Notice Date
- 8/7/2014
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541618
— Other Management Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Agency for International Development, Washington D.C., USAID/Washington, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 7.10-006, Washington, District of Columbia, 20523, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20523
- Solicitation Number
- SOL-OAA-14-000152
- Archive Date
- 9/4/2014
- Point of Contact
- Kelly Fink, Phone: 202-567-5295, Paul D. Burford, Phone: 202-712-4697
- E-Mail Address
-
kfink@usaid.gov, pburford@usaid.gov
(kfink@usaid.gov, pburford@usaid.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Food Security Notification of Sources Sought and Request for Information Overview of the Requirement and the Purpose of the Notice The purpose of this Notice is to identify the availability of capable small business concerns (e.g., 8(a), veteran owned, service-disabled veteran owned, Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone), small disadvantaged business, women-owned small business and economically disadvantaged woman owned) that can perform : (1) USAID Mission-demanded analytical and diagnostic work on enabling and constraining factors related to the agribusiness enabling environment; (2) rapid mobilization of expert teams from among global networks of agricultural specialists, including within countries in which Missions work, so that the process from Mission request to team mobilization to deliverable completion is conducted with minimal burden on USAID Washington and field missions; (3) Development and implementation of training on advanced topics related to the enabling environment for food security; and (4) Knowledge management functions, including webinars and twitter chats, with global reach. Additionally, USAID seeks to obtain industry questions and/or comments for this planned new activity, Feed the Future (FTF) Enabling Environment for Food Security (EEFS). USAID intends to award a single contract for this new activity. Given the nature of this award, the leadership of this project must foster a productive working relationship with multiple stakeholders, USAID Missions, and Washington offices worldwide. The Statement of Work presents the current draft objectives and key elements of the activity. The level of funding allocated for this project is expected to range between $9 million and $12 million over a five-year implementation period. This is not an invitation for bid, request for proposal or other solicitation; and in no way obligates the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to award a contract. Solicitation Number: M/OAA/FS SOL-OAA-14-000149 Agency: US Agency for International Development Requiring Office: Bureau for Food Security Estimated Period of Performance: Five years Location: Worldwide Notice Type: Small Business Sources Sought Notification/Request for Information Posted Date: August 7, 2014 Response Due Date: August 20, 2014 NAICS Code: 541618 STATEMENT OF WORK BACKGROUND The United States Government's (USG's) Feed the Future (FTF) Initiative promotes sound legal, regulatory, and institutional environments--or enabling environments--that increase private sector investment and expand markets and trade, leading to better food security and nutrition outcomes that drive long-term gains and sustainability. A sound enabling environment is a condition for economic growth in the agricultural sector. Research that compares the Green Revolution in Asia to agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa finds that institutional change, which led to a transparent state, functioning markets, and farmer organizations that represent the interests of family farmers, explains much of the agricultural success seen in Asia (Biggs, 2007; Djurfeldt et al, 2005). When the transaction costs of essential business functions are reduced through improved enabling environments, conditions are created along agricultural value chains that can stimulate trade and investment and expand market opportunities for smallholders. At the same time, informal institutions (i.e. social norms and values that govern individual and collective behavior, including gender dimensions) interact with formal rules to affect agricultural value chain development. Changes to enabling environments will lead to trade-offs, shifting costs and benefits within a society, affecting different groups within a community in different ways. Sustained gains in food security and nutrition will require improved agribusiness enabling environments that both enhance legal and regulatory frameworks for doing business in the agricultural sector, but also consider how these formal rule changes shift costs and benefits within a society. An improved enabling environment for agriculture and nutrition will: 1) reduce costs of doing business in the agricultural sector along key value chains, 2) reduce the degree of uncertainty that value chain actors face about their ability to profit in the future from investment decisions made now, 3) create the conditions for sustainable reform, and 4) increase trust and predictability among actors along agricultural value chains. SCOPE The Project Objective for the Enabling Environment for Food Security award is to support USAID field missions and USAID Washington through targeted approaches for diagnosing and addressing enabling environment factors. The Project will effectively respond to Mission requests for technical assistance by being adaptable and able to tailor analytical methodologies and activities to specific geographic and value chain contexts. The general Project approach will consist of designing and implementing analytical activities for USAID Washington and field Missions, building USAID and host country capacity for integrating enabling environment concepts in strategic programming, and managing the knowledge generated from these activities. Successful implementation of this Project will require a mix of skills and capabilities, including: analytical and evaluation skills; education and training capability; and country logistical and Project implementation capacity. Offerors will have skills to effectively and efficiently manage limited funding and have necessary flexibility, as work plans are developed in response to demand and interest from Mission clients and as the Project and country development programs evolve. The Offeror must have the ability to match the different needs and opportunities that arise in different geographic and technical areas with expertise and capacities of possible STTA consultants. Applicants should ensure that management systems are flexible and able to respond to changing needs as the Project progresses and as needs and opportunities are identified. The scale of activities under this Project will depend on the availability of USAID funding and the demand for assistance for diagnostic, analytical, technical, and capacity building support. Project activities will be defined and approved in Annual Work plans and become more specific as Mission's define Scopes of Work and field support buy-ins to the project. The project will generate information that will strengthen legal and institutional frameworks that create the conditions to achieve Feed the Future goals. Project activities will include targeted commercial, legal and institutional analysis, implementation support, knowledge management, capacity building, and thought leadership on how to enable institutional change that contributes to inclusive agricultural growth and improved nutrition. The project will lead to increased effectiveness of projects designed to foster institutional changes that benefit actors along key agricultural value chains, in particular, men and women smallholders, support implementation of regional harmonization efforts at the country level, as well as the longer-term interest of FTF focus, priority, and aligned countries. PROJECT TASKS/ACTIVITIES The Enabling Environment for Food security Project will have four components. Activities are expected to benefit Missions, including USAID Washington, developing country policymakers, actors along key agricultural value chains, development practitioners from NGOs, and other donors. Activities will be relevant to country programs responding to new challenges of enhancing food security and climate change. It is anticipated that a majority of activities performed under this contract will involve financial contributions from participating USAID Mission projects. The Contactor is expected to be responsive to USAID mission demands for technical assistance. The Contractor will perform the following activities listed below. Component 1.Technical Analysis and Targeted Technical Assistance: The Contractor will analyze legal, regulatory and institutional factors and prioritize actionable recommendations and options to assist in strategic programming and project design and to achieve regional and country level objectives. Analysis will be conducted using existing diagnostic tools (e.g. Commercial, Legal, Institutional and Regulations (CLIR) methodology, political economy framework) or through the development of custom analytical frameworks as needed. For example, agribusiness enabling environment (AgBEE) benchmarking data generated through the Agricultural Regulations and Institutions (AGRI) Index pilot implemented through USAID's Enabling Agricultural Trade (EAT) project and a comparative data set generated through the Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture (BBA) project, will be ready for benchmarking and comparative analysis purposes in FY15. These datasets represent an opportunity for USAID Missions to undertake deeper analysis of specific AgBEE factors, utilizing AgBEE tools. The Contractor will also be requested to provide analytical support that will assist approximately 30% of FTF Missions with implementing scaling plans. Once a USAID Mission in a FTF country has requested an interest in buying into the Enabling Environment for Food Security project, the Project will work with Missions to define the scope of the buy-in activity, estimate a budget and a timeframe for implementation. When field Missions buy in, assignments will typically include a desk study component and a 2-3 week in-country component for further data collection comprised of field work by a small team that includes key stakeholder interviews, and triangulation to confirm findings in interviews. Component 2.Knowledge Management: Analytical findings and knowledge the Contractor generates will become valuable when it is shared and managed. The Contractor will prepare technical briefs that expand and improve USAID Mission understanding and use of activities that promote improved enabling environments for food security. The Contractor will contribute to the knowledge base on how laws, regulations, and social norms interact to create different institutional outcomes, integrating cross-cutting themes, such as gender, climate change, and nutrition. Thought leadership also includes developing improved indicators for monitoring and evaluating enabling environment projects to assist missions with measuring performance. Thought leadership and knowledge management will lead to improved understanding about how enabling environment factors affect FTF programming. The Contractor will work closely with USAID to accomplish the following: a.Utilize existing on-line gateways to knowledge generated in support of the USG Feed the Future Initiative. b.Support USAID field mission and Washington staff with the development of materials for public presentations. c.Conduct public presentations, including on-line events, such as webinars, related to assessments and other activities carried out through the project. Component 3.Capacity Building: An improved enabling environment requires that government, the private sector, and civil society have the capacity to fulfill their distinct roles in devising, implementing, and monitoring reform efforts. The Contractor will design and conduct training for USAID staff on food security enabling environment topics to enhance the ability of Regional and Bilateral Missions to follow through with recommendations generated through technical analysis and stakeholder led processes. Trainings could range from one hour to a few days and will take place in Washington or field locations. The Project will work with USAID/BFS staff to identify training needs and timing of training. An estimated two trainings a year will take place. Component 4.Implementation Support: Experience has shown that Missions often need support to follow through on the actionable recommendations generated through analytical work. The Contractor will provide missions with on-site short -term technical assistance (STTA) as needed to achieve country and regional objectives. The duration of on-site, full-time STTA could range from two weeks to twelve months. STTA could include embedded advisors in country or regional organizations to provide support to implementation of actionable recommendations generated from Technical Analysis, further stakeholder consultations, partner requests, presentation of findings, expert review of agricultural laws, or other interventions as identified. Implementation support could also include assisting Missions with integrating cross-cutting themes, such as gender, into follow-up actions. Importantly, the Contractor could provide support to monitor and evaluate the progress and impact from enabling environment activities. It is anticipated that at least eight of the 22 FTF focus and aligned countries will require implementation support over the life of the project based on past and current demand. Submission Information: All submissions shall be submitted by the closing date and time noted on page 1 of this notice. Submission via email is required; no hard copy delivery will be accepted. E-mail submissions shall be sent to kfink@usaid.gov and pburford@usaid.gov. Interested parties shall prepare their submission in English, and shall address the information requested below. All submissions must include Section I "Cover Page." Interested Small Businesses are also invited to respond to both Sections II "Capability Statements" and Section III "Comments/Questions." Interested Parties Other than Small Business are invited to provide feedback via Section III "Comments/Questions." Submissions shall use only 8.5 inch by 11 inch paper, single-spaced pages for all narrative documents and each page numbered consecutively. Interested parties must use Times New Roman font 11 or a similar size typeset. I.Cover Page with Business Information (1 page) •Company: name, address, contact information •Point of Contact(s): name, title, phone number, address, e-mail address •Statement of self-certification of business size and socio-economic status of the Vendor •Statement of the Vendor's DUNS II.Capability Statements (10 Page Limit) Small Businesses having the skills and capabilities necessary to perform this work should submit a response of no more than ten (10) pages in length. This page limitation includes any attachments. The Government will not review any information, including attachments, in excess of the ten (10) pages, unless otherwise stated in this section. Organizations should provide clear and unambiguous evidence to substantiate their capability to fulfill any or all of the areas of work sought. Submissions must include the following: Capabilities/Qualifications Capabilities/Qualifications must be written to provide clear and unambiguous evidence to substantiate the capacity to fulfill this requirement. Responses must include concise answers to the following questions: a.How many in-house experts related to enabling environment for food security does the firm currently employ? The firm should provide short biographical information (1-2 paragraphs -page CV as an attachment) with the name and qualifications for all qualified personnel. Qualifying candidates will have a graduate degree in law, economics or other relevant field and a minimum of five years of project management or government COR/AOR experience. Experience applying technical analysis to an agriculture context is required, and an ideal candidate will have this experience in developing countries. b.How many times has your firm provided technical assistance (TA) related to enabling environment for food security, including agricultural trade and commercializing agricultural technologies in the last three years? Please describe the type of technical assistance provided, to whom, for what length of time and the tangible outcomes/results of this technical assistance. c.Please describe the firm's in-house experience with preparation of technical briefs and preparation and implementation of learning exchanges, including through on-line gateways to knowledge. Please describe the focus of these communication activities, the audiences reached, and evidence of results. d.Please describe the firm's in-house experience designing and conducting training related to best practices in enabling environment for agricultural development. Please describe the focus of training, to whom, and evidence of participant evaluations of the training. e.The firm must provide past performance information for up to five projects (completed within the past ten years) which demonstrate the offeror's in-house experience managing and implementing projects that contain all the functions listed under the Scope of Work. For each reference to a minimally qualifying experience, contract, or level of expertise, the firm shall provide the following information in concise format: (i)the name of the implementing organization(s) (ii)the country/countries of implementation (iii)the period of performance (iv)the award amount (v)brief project description(s) of the core elements listed above (vi)brief description of the outcomes and results (vii)the name and telephone number and e-mail address of at least two contacts at the organization(s) for which the service was performed If interested firms are only able to perform some or one of the posted components they should indicate that in their response to this Notice and describe the areas of expertise for which they are capable of performing. USAID will not accept capability statements from other than small business. III.Comments/Questions (if applicable) Comments and Questions not to exceed two (2) pages will be accepted from all interested parties (not limited to small business concerns) regarding the Statement of Work; however the government will not be providing responses. This is not a formal solicitation Q&A period. All comments and questions will merely serve to inform the government on current market trends and further refine the Scope of Work. Comments may include but are not limited to feedback on the Statement of Work requirements, recommendations on contract type, anticipated demand in beneficiary geographic areas, etc.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/AID/OP/WashingtonDC/SOL-OAA-14-000152/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Worldwide, United States
- Record
- SN03455927-W 20140809/140807235852-2e9fa9cfe798f7380cea12604e6b04be (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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