Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs

The Department of State Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs is the civilian sub-agency responsible for diplomatic engagement, policy development, and international programming across North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The Bureau transacts primarily through foreign recipients and foreign awardees in support of cultural exchange, educational partnerships, and development initiatives across the Western Hemisphere.

The Bureau has awarded 55,774 federal contracts with combined potential value of $2.52 billion and combined dollars obligated of $1.82 billion since 2001. Contract activity has declined in recent years: 2,163 awards in 2023, 1,822 in 2024, 1,327 in 2025, 936 in 2026, and 1 recorded award in 2027. The portfolio spans 3,554 distinct prime contractors. Ninety-eight percent of awards carry no set-aside designation; small-business set-asides account for 2 percent, with 8(a) awards (sole source and competitive combined) at under 1 percent, and remaining designations including HUBZone, WOSB, and SDVOSB each representing less than 1 percent.

Contract competitive concentration is highly fragmented by award count and by potential value. Over the last five years, three separate groupings of "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees" together hold 45 percent of recent awards but only 7 percent of combined potential value. New TECH Solutions, Inc. and Ethan Allen Retail, Inc. are among the more visible individual award recipients, though both transact at relatively modest scales. The dominance of foreign awardees reflects the Bureau's hemispheric mission and procurement posture.

The Bureau has awarded 5,504 federal grants with combined federal dollars obligated of $289.3 million and combined total dollars (federal and non-federal share) of $328.4 million since 2012. Grant activity declined sharply: 693 awards in 2022, 526 in 2023, 519 in 2024, 29 in 2025, and 39 in 2026 year-to-date. The portfolio spans 1,101 distinct grant recipients. Ninety-six percent of awards are Project Grants; Cooperative Agreements account for 4 percent.

Grant recipient concentration is highly fragmented by award count and by federal dollars. Over the last five years, two groupings of "Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees," Centro Colombino Americano De Medellin, and Asociacion De Jovenes Ex Becarios Del Departamento De Estado together hold 12 percent of recent awards but only 3 percent of federal dollars obligated. The remainder of the recipient base is distributed among small cultural, educational, and civil-society organizations throughout the hemisphere. The most recent grant award was recorded on October 1, 2026.