U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Procurement, M/OP/ENI/EPE, Room 1402, SA-14, Washington, DC 20523-1415

R -- ALBANIA PRIVATE FORESTRY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM SOL OP/ENI/EPE-95-4 DUE 061695 POC Cathy Mallay, Contract Specialist, Tel 703/875-1235; Sharon Zavestoski, Contracting Officer, 703/875-1053. USAID is seeking proposals under full and open competition to provide technical assistance in support of the Albania Private Forestry Development Program (APFDP) subcomponent of the Improved Public Sector Environmental Services Project (180.0039.11). The purpose of the Improved Public Sector Environmental Services Project is to improve the environmental quality in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and strengthen CEE governments' capacity to provide public sector environment services. The goal of the APFDP subcomponent is to increase Albanian rural household incomes and alleviate and ultimately reverse forest environmental degradation by encouraging and supporting development of sustainable private sector forestry management on privately owned lands and on communal forests and pastures. In order to meet these goals, the APFDP will assist the Government of Albania (GOA) to meet the following objectives: (1) To develop policies and legal instruments, and the national, regional and local authorities to implement them effectively, that will foster sustainable, market based forestry on private agricultural lands and sustainable forestry on communal lands; (2) To develop and implement a forest management and demonstration replication approach that involves both the public and private sectors. This approach should lead to enhanced and sustained productivity of forests, pasture lands and marginal lands of selected communities in at least 6 of Albania's 36 forest administrative districts, and to the creation of a network of private farm forest production centers (nurseries, woodlots, etc.) and forest products processing and marketing enterprises, beyond those funded by this Program; and (3) To develop and implement in cooperation with the GOA, Albanian non-governmental organizations, the U.S. Peace Corps and the World Bank, an effective public/private extension network and support service system for managers of private forest lands, and managers of village and community forests and grazing lands. The four tasks under this contract will be: (1) Strengthen National and Regional Forestry Policies and Institutions, (2) Develop and Demonstrate Village and Private Sector Forestry, (3) Develop Forestry Extension Capabilities on Selected Demonstration Sites and (4) Provision of Commodities and Equipment. Further information, including the full statement of work, and instructions on the preparation of technical and cost proposals, will be included in the RFP. USAID encourages the participation of U.S. entities that are: small disadvantaged businesses, private voluntary organizations, and disadvantaged enterprises including small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, historically Black colleges and universities, colleges and universities with more than 40 percent Hispanic American students, and U.S. PVOs owned an controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, including women in accordance with FAR Part 19 and AIDAR part 726). Subcontracting plans will be required from all offerors which are not small businesses. All requests to be added to the mailing list for RFP OP/ENI/EPE must be submitted in writing to the attention of Cathy Mallay, must reference RFP no. OP/ENI/EPE-95-4, and must include 3 self-addressed mailing labels. The RFP will include as an attachment a list of organizations requesting the RFP. The RFP will be issued on or about May 5, 1995, via regular U.S. mail service. There will be no copies available for pick-up or for courier delivery until approximately 2 weeks after the RFP is issued. This CBD notice and, once issued, the RFP can be downloaded using the USAID Gopher address: gopher.info.usaid.gov. Select USAID Procurement and Business Opportunities from the Gopher menu. The CBD notice and, once issued, the RFP text can be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Look under the following directory for the RFP: PUB/OP/RFP/EEPE504.RFP. Receipt of this RFP through internet must be confirmed by written (mail or fax 703/975-1957) notification to the contract specialist noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the RFP has been received from Internet in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. (0137)

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