Q&A Week May 15 - FFPr.pdf

Food for Progress Standing NOFO

Questions received as of May 15

1. Under Program Priorities, reference is made to use of supplemental funds for “continuation of program activities.” Can USDA explain under what situations would this be an acceptable basis for a request of additional funding? Furthermore, can this include shifting program activities to new regions or new populations based on disruptions (financial, political or security) that a program has suffered?

An update to the Standing Supplemental NOFO, uploaded to grants.gov on Friday, May 29, 2020, clarifies that only entities with existing FFPr agreements with remaining freight funding may apply, and that the NOFO can only be used for upward adjustments using FY2020 Commodity funds to address monetization shortfalls. If an entity meets those eligibility requirements, they can send an amendment letter request to FFPrAmendments@usda.gov. IFAD will review the amendment letter and will inform the entities if the Standing NOFO applies. The proposed amendment activities should stay within the scope of the agreement and targeted regions.

2. Can USDA confirm if the additional funding will be in the form of cash or through a commodity to monetize?

As clarified in an update to the Standing Supplemental NOFO, uploaded to grants.gov on Friday, May 29, 2020, the additional funding will be in the form of commodity to monetize.

3. Our program has experienced political insecurity setbacks in a limited number of areas that were not originally anticipated and planned for in the original approved program document. Would it be acceptable for implementer to request funding for the following:

o a) expand and enhance our staff and program security systems and approaches at the project level (additional security support, training, and use of enhanced security incident tracking and reporting, etc.)?

o b) shift a certain number of project activities from insecure areas to more secure areas—this would involve initiating new start-up activities, accelerating program implementation through additional staff and trainings, to bring the new areas up to speed with the areas that began at the start of the program?

As stated in the answer to Question 1: An update to the Standing Supplemental NOFO, uploaded to grants.gov on Friday, May 29, 2020, clarifies that only entities with remaining freight may apply, and that the NOFO can only be used for upward adjustments using FY2020 Commodity funds to address monetization shortfalls. If an entity meets those eligibility requirements, they can send an amendment letter request to FFPrAmendments@usda.gov. IFAD will review the amendment letter and will inform the entities if the Standing NOFO applies. The proposed amendment activities should stay within the scope of the agreement and targeted regions.

4. USDA approved repurposing funds from our program budget for COVID-19 response. Can our request in the NOFO include backfilling this funding and adding additional funds to continue COVID-19 response programming?

mailto:FFPrAmendments@usda.gov mailto:FFPrAmendments@usda.gov

As stated in Answer 1 and 3: An update to the Standing Supplemental NOFO, uploaded to grants.gov on Friday, May 29, 2020, clarifies that only entities with remaining freight may apply, and that the NOFO can only be used for upward adjustments using FY2020 Commodity funds to address monetization shortfalls.

5. Can USDA advise how the $50M was arrived at in the Standing NOFO? Will it later share how this funding was allocated by grant?

USDA set the cap based on an estimation of commodity funds that would be remaining from the FY2020 allocation after FY20 awards were made. Food for Progress completes an annual report for each funding year, and this will be published on the FAS website.