United States Agency for International Development (USAID), REDSO/WCA/OP; Abidjan (ID), Department of State, Washington, DC 20521-2010

X -- FAMILY HEALTH AND AIDS SERVICES SOL 624-95-A-003 John R. Taber, Agreement Officer, REDSO/WCA/OP, Int. Tel. (225) 41-45-28; Int. Fax. Nos. (225) 41-35-44 or (225) 41-24-60. The United States Agency for International Development invites nonprofit, nongovernmental, organizations to submit applications for a specific support cooperative agreement under the Family Health and AIDS--West and Central Africa Project. The project draws upon the knowledge and experience of institutions which have delivered, or supported the delivery of Health and Family Planning services in the region. It is envisioned that cooperative agreements will be awarded in four component areas: Service Delivery, IEC, Training, and Operations Research. The applicants will be requested to submit comprehensive, integrated approaches deal with developmentally debilitating transnational health and Family Planning problems in the broad program areas of maternam and child health, HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning. The applicantions received will be expected to address some of the following important project principles; (1) replicate cost effective best practices, which will reduce duplication and waste, using strong African partners throughout the region and (2) examine and seize opportunities to cooperate with other donors and regional organizations in joint program planning and coordinated implementation for maximum positive impact in the region. The project seeks to ensure the sustainability of the most effective health and family planning policies and practices, thus improving the chances for significant long term improvements in the health and population status of West and Central African people. Given specific and end-of-project status indicators, the cooperative agreement applicants will describe in their proposals the strategies the recommend, including the most aporopriate target population groups, and commit to a project management, implementation and monitoring strategy of intergrated service delivery, African capacity development, and sustainability. The selection criteria will reward organizations that offer low unit costs per beneficiary served, can document proven success in the target area, and propose a thoughtful strategy for both coordinating their activities with our other grantees and building the capacity of African organizations to assume ultimate responsibility for the delivery systems. At a minimum, this capacity building activity must take the form of subgrants to such organizations for part of the project work and assistance in identifying and putting in place reliable sources of long-term financing. REDSO/WCA anticipates substantial involvement by participating actively at the beginning of the project in the establishment of the unified management structure and the system of consolidated reporting of program accomplishments. Once these systems are in place and functioning properly, the REDSO/WCA participation will be reduced to a monitoring role. REDSO/WCA will be responsible for arranging the purchase and shipment of contraceptive commodities required to meet the agreed needs of project participants. No further involvement, beyond that associated with normal agreement administration, is anticipated. This routine involvement is expected to include review and approval of the unified five year and annual implementation plans, and associated budgets, as part of the annual funding review. Attention will focus particularly on project achievements and outputs, the procurement plans for long and short-term technical assistance, and the status of subagreements between U.S. and African partners, particularly as they relate to the status of the transfer of responsibilities to the African partners. If the prime recipient is not a small, disadvantaged or Gray Amendment nonprofit entity, then it will make every reasonable effort to identify and make maximum practical use of Gray Amendment organizations. Not less than 10 percent of the total value of any resulting agreement must be awarded to subcontractors or subgrantees who are Gray Amendment entities (U.S. socially and economically disadvantaged, including women-owned businesses; historically Black colleges and universities; U.S. colleges and universities with at least 40 percent Hispanic American students; and U.S. private voluntary organizations controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, including women). All questions related to this notice and requests for a copy of RFA No. 624-95-A-003 must be addressed, in writing to: John R. Taber, Agreement Officer, Office of Procurement, REDSO/WCA, C/O American Embassy, 01 B.P. 1712, Abidjan 01, Cote D'Ivoire or John R. Taber, Agreement Officer, Abidjan (ID), Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-2010; Int. Fax Nos.:(225) 41-35-44 or (225) 41-34-60. Specify the RFA requested, and include your complete firm name, street address, phone/telex/faxed no./e-mail address. No telephone requests will be honored. It is anticipated that preaward conferences will be held in Washington D.C. and Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire O/a June 5, 1995 and O/a June 12, 1995 respectively. Confirmed dates will be provided in the RFA. The issuance date of the RFA is expected to be approximately ten (10) days from the date of publication of this notice. The closing date will be approximately sixty (60) days from the actual issuance date. This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFA, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher. The Gopher address is Gopher.Info.USAID.Gov. Select USAID procurement and Business Opportunities from the Gopher Menu. The RFA text can be downloaded via anonymous File Transfer Protocal (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.Info.USAID.Gov. Logon using the user identification of ''Anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFA: PUB/OP/RFA/62495A03. Receipt of this RFA through internet must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solictiation document to ensure that it has been received from Internet in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission of conversion processes. The publication of this notice or the issuance of a request for applications does not obligate the U.S. Government to award a cooperative agreement. (0124)

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