The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID/Egypt, Directorate of Procurement, (D/PROC), Unit 64902, APO AE 09839-4902

R -- TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE REQUIRED UNDER THE AGRICULTURE TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION AND TRANSFER (ATUT) PROJECT SOL RFP No. 263-95-P-059 Contact Point: Mr. Leonel Pizarro, Contracting Officer, USAID/Egypt, Tel. No. 011-20-2-357-3257/8, Telefax No. 011-20-2-356-2932. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID/Egypt seeks proposals from interest U.S. consulting firms/joint ventures, U.S. universities (alone or as consortia) or a combination of the two to provide technical assistance in the development, management and measurement of a program designed to assist with the development and transfer of productivity enhancing techologies for increasing high value horticultural exports from Egypt. The Agricultural Technology Utilization and Transfer (ATUT) project (263-0240) will include two major components; horticulture and food crops. USAID will directly manage the implementation of the food crops component with any required technical assistance to be procured through an agreement with another USG agency. The horticulture component, the larger of the two, however, will be fully competed. The horticulture component include two major activities: technology transfer and adaptive research. Technology Transfer will include U.S. and third country observation visits and tours as well as the provision of specialized expertise in areas to be collaboratively identified with the Ministry of Agriculture during project implementation. There will be in-country technology transfer activities which will include seminars, workshops and field visits. Topics for adaptive research grants will be developed in consultation with the Egyptian private sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and USAID. Adaptive research grants will be competitively selected and be carried out collaboratively with US institutions. Both the food crops component and the Horticulture Component will be supported by a Program Support Unit (PSU) to carry out marketing studies, and other analyses required by the project to meet its objectives. The PSU will also monitor and report upon the impact and results of the ATUT project. The contractor will be required to provide long-and-short-term expertise in horticulture, agronomy, agricultural extension, agricultural marketing, system management and related fields required to promote increased exports of a select number of high value horticulture crops. There will be no academic training and extremely limited procurement of reseach equipment and office equipment under ATUT. The contract will be awarded initially for 2 years with an option for additional yet-to-be-determined period(s) of time. Services shall be provided via direct USAID contract. Funds for this procurement are not currently available, however, they are anticipated to be available shortly. Since funds are not currently approved, offeror are under no obligation to submit any proposal in response to this advertisement. The choice to submit technical and cost proposals, shall be at the offeror's own risk. Issuance of this solicitation does not constitute an award commitment on the part of the Government nor does it commit the Government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation of submission of a proposal. Interested offerors must request a copy of the RFP in writing from Leonel Pizarro, Contracting Officer, USAID/Cairo, Unit 64902, APO AE 09839-4902 or at USAID/Cairo, Directorate of Procurement, 106 Kasr El Aini Street, Cairo Center Bldg., 6th Floor, Cairo, Egypt. Telefax requests to 011-20-2-356-2932 will be accepted. Telephone requests will not be considered. The RFP is expected to be released towards the end of August 1995. The deadline for submission of proposals is anticipated to be 45 days after issuance of the RFP. Would be offerors are requested not to contact the Cairo mission to provide preliminary information about this solicitation, as the final design work is yet to be completed. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) encourages the participation to the maximum extent possible of small business concerns, small disadvantaged business concerns and women-owned small business concern in this activity as prime contractors or subcontractors in accordance with Part 19 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. In this respect, it is anticipated that the prime contractor will make every reasonable effort to identify and make maximum practicable use of such concerns. All other evaluation criteria being found equal, the participation of such concerns may become a determining factor for selection. This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFP, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher. The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID Pocurement and Business Opportunities from the Gopher menu. The RFP text can be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon on using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/26395p95/26395P95.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsiblility of the receipient of this soliciation document to ensure that it has been received from INTERNET in its entirely and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes.'' (0199)

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