Monitoring and Evaluation to Collaborate, Learn, Adapt, and Knowledge Management (MECLAK)

USAID/Southern Africa established this Master IDIQ on July 1, 2019, to procure monitoring, evaluation, collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) and knowledge-management support services across USAID missions in Southern Africa. The vehicle's ordering period closed July 1, 2024, and no new task orders may be placed against it.

Six task orders have been awarded totaling $12 million in combined potential value, with $11.6 million obligated (96% of potential). The vehicle is dominated by a single prime contractor: Socha, LLC holds two orders worth $10.6 million combined potential value, representing approximately 88% of the vehicle's total value. The remaining four primes—ICF Macro Inc., Integrated Business & Technical Consultants Inc., Social Impact Inc., and The QED Group LLC—collectively hold $1.4 million in potential value across four awards. All six task orders were issued without set-aside restrictions.

Customer concentration is similarly pronounced: USAID/Zambia placed one order (the MEL Platform Activity) valued at $10.1 million, capturing the vast majority of vehicle activity. USAID/South Africa funded three orders totaling $1.2 million, and USAID/Zimbabwe funded two orders totaling $750 thousand. Awarded work spans performance and program evaluations for health (tuberculosis treatment outcomes), energy (Nigeria Power Sector Program, Power Africa Off Grid Project, West Africa and East Africa Energy Programs), agriculture (community gardens contribution to income and nutrition), and institutional capacity building (monitoring, evaluation, and learning platforms).

Task orders are priced as firm fixed price or cost plus fixed fee, with durations ranging from approximately one year to multi-year engagements. The largest single order, the USAID/Zambia MEL Platform Activity ($10.1 million ceiling, awarded June 2020), required cost-plus pricing. Most other task orders fall in the $200 thousand to $750 thousand range as discrete evaluation studies. Awards have been issued at a rate of roughly one per year since 2020, with the most recent order (community gardens evaluation) placed in September 2024, after the official ordering cutoff date.

USAID through its Regional Mission to Southern Africa (USAID/SA), has awarded a Master IDIQ entitled Monitoring and Evaluation to Collaborate, Learn, Adapt, and Knowledge Management (MECLAK). The MECLAK IDIQ will provide a central platform for the procurement of support services that will strengthen, support, and facilitate USAID's Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA), and Knowledge Management (KM) practices and approaches within USAID Missions in Southern Africa and in USAID activities across Southern Africa.