Regional Contracting Officer, USAID/Poland, Department of State, Washington, D.C. 20521-5010

R -- LOCAL GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM SOL POLAND 97-001 POC Contact Point, Thomas M. Stephens, Regional Contracting Officer, USAID/Poland, Phone: 48-22-630-2480; e-mail: thstephens@usaid.gov. RFP No. Poland-97-001, USAID/Poland requires the services of a U.S. or Polish organization to implement a 3.5 year program of technical assistance, training, institution strenghtening, and information management keyed to 40-50 Polish gminas (cities, towns, villages). A cost-reimbursement - award fee (performance based completion type) contract is contemplated. The program is titled Local Government Partnership Program (LGPP). The program will be implemented in Poland and its purpose is more effective, responsive, and accountable local governments. The contract resulting from this solicitation will be the primary component for achieving the results of the LGPP. The program will be implemented through (a) development of models of good practice for gmina governance, (b) dissemination of those models throughout the country, (c) building and strengthening Polish institutions (e.g., training institutions, NGOs, consulting firms and urban studies facilities) in support of dissemination activities and to carry the work forward into the future, and (d) influencing national policy to enhance local governance. The program takes full advantage of all past and ongoing work in local government in Poland by USAID and other donors (including pilot partnership programs with gminas) and will make extensive use of Polish professional and institutional resources. It is anticipated that a central Warsaw-based staff and three regional staffs will be needed to work with the 40-50 gminas and carry out the full extent of the contract SOW and LGPP. Illustrative areas of long term technical expertise that could be required include: strategic management, budgeting and finance, economic development, performance monitoring and management (including operations management), information dissemination/public relations, municipal service delivery and financing, housing and land management and development, customer service, and citizen participation. Short term experts may be needed in such areas as transport, water, waste and solid waste management, tourism, downtown revitalization, industrial parks and business incubators, and agro business development. Management of a $3 million grant program will be included as part of the contract SOW. The Governement's estimate for performance of the work under this performance-based contract is $30 - $34 million. It should be noted that final approval and funding for this procurement have not been received at this time. While we fully expect that approval and funding will be obtained, should they not be, the procurement will not go forward. The RFP will be issued not earlier than 15 days from the date of publication of this notice. The due date for receipt of offers will be 60 days from the RFP issuance date and will be specifically stated in the RFP document. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the Internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' floppy disk (Wordperfect 5.1/5.2 format). 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 PROCUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES from the Gopher menu. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFP can also be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon using the user identification ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/PL9701/pl9701.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibilitiy of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from the INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. It is the responsibility of the potential offeror to submit a request for the RFP document in a timely manner to ensure receipt of the documents well in advance so submission can be made within the submission period. RFPs will not be mailed in response to requests received with less than two weeks remaining until proposal submission date. It is the sole responsibility of the offerors to insure that their proposal reaches the specified location for receipt of proposals in Poland no later than the date and time specified in the RFP document. Faxed requests for the RFP document will be accepted at country code 48, city code 22, 628-7486. Telephone requests will not be honored. (0326)

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