Animal Health Innovation Lab - RFI.pdf

U.S. Agency for International Development

Bureau for Food Security, Office of Agriculture, Research and Policy Request for Information in support of Animal Health APS No.7200AA20APS00001

Issuance Date: Friday, February 28, 2020

Response Due Date: Friday, March 13, 2020 at 12:00pm EDT

The United States Government, represented by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Bureau for Food Security (BFS), is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to interested organizations, particularly non-traditional partners, including Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), civil society, private sector, local partners, as well as new and underutilized partners1. The RFI is intended to:

● Collect expressions of interest from organizations that can potentially support research and development consortium-style programming in the area of animal health. The resulting market research will be utilized to identify organizations that are not eligible to submit concept papers as prime applicants, but are potentially interested in consortium style partnering.

USAID is conducting market research to provide supplemental information during the co-creation process for the Animal Health APS (No. 7200APS20APS00001). Responses to this RFI will be made available to eligible prime applicants who may, or may not, contact respondents directly. The identified types of organizations listed above is not an exhaustive list of potential partners and provided only as a sample of the firms and types of firms that are available as consortium partners. USAID requests that any interested organizations review the draft summary in Attachment One and provide responses to the questions contained in Attachment Two. Please note, USAID is particularly interested in hearing from new or underutilized partners.

This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. Respondents will not be notified of the result of the review.

USAID reserves the right to use any physical materials submitted by respondents for USAID’s own purposes. Proprietary information must not be sent. USAID reserves the right to, or not to, incorporate any, some, or none of the comments received from this RFI into any subsequent solicitations or design documents.

1 New Partners are “an individual or organization that has not received any funding from USAID as a prime partner over the last five years” and Underutilized Partners are “an organization that has received less than $25 million in direct or indirect awards from USAID over the past five years.”

https://www.usaid.gov/npi/npi-key-definitions https://www.usaid.gov/npi/npi-key-definitions

Submission Instructions and Response Format:

Please provide one (1) electronic copy of your response in Microsoft Word format as a single email attachment to Ms. Michele Maximilien (mmaximilien@usaid.gov). Please submit responses via email only by Friday, March 13, 2020 at 12:00PM EDT.

The total length of the RFI submission cannot exceed five (5) pages and must be submitted using 12 point Arial font, 8.5 x 11-inch paper (letter-sized), single line spacing, one-inch margins, no graphics, and pages numbered consecutively.

If the submitter has produced relevant reports and/or other written materials or would like to cite other reference materials, then those reports may be included only as embedded links within the page limit.

The respondent should include the following information on the first page:

● Name

● Title

● Organization

● Type of Organization

● Email

● DUNS number

Responses to this notice are NOT considered offers and CANNOT be accepted by the U.S.

Government to form a binding contract. Therefore, USAID is not seeking technical or cost proposals. Please do not submit a full proposal to this RFI as these will not be reviewed and will be discarded.

ATTACHMENT 1 - DRAFT SUMMARY

BACKGROUND

The Feed the Future Initiative under the Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) is an integrated whole-of-government strategy. The GFSS charts a course for the U.S. Government to contribute to the achievement of global food security together with partners across the globe.

The GFSS aims to advance food security and improve nutrition by focusing efforts around three objectives: 1) inclusive and sustainable agricultural-led economic growth, 2) strengthened resilience among people and systems, and 3) a well-nourished population, especially women and children.

Investments in livestock production, animal source foods (ASF), and related market systems support all three GFSS goals. In order to meet the increased demand for animal source foods in the future, producers in developing countries will need to both increase animal productivity and reduce production losses. The intensification of livestock systems required to meet the demand of animal sourced foods by 2050 in developing countries will likely result in an increased frequency of livestock diseases, including zoonoses, if investments in animal health are not made.

The goal of a new Animal Health Innovation Lab will be to build capacity of local university(s) in Food the Future or Resilience countries to do animal health research as well as to support research for the development and testing of new or improved animal health intervention tests for one of the following livestock diseases:

● African Animal Trypanosomiasis

● East Coast Fever

● Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP)

● Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP)

USAID anticipates that the Animal Health Innovation Lab will be a consortium of partners working collaboratively to provide technical expertise that enhances research, development, and dissemination of animal health interventions as well as support for Human and Institutional Capacity Development (HICD). Consortium partners may include private sector entities, public sector entities, Consultative Group of International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), National Agriculture Research System (NARS), and NGOs from the US or abroad.

Enhancing research, development, and dissemination of animal health interventions: The Animal Health Innovation Lab aims to improve animal health throughout multiple livestock systems. The intention of the lab is to support research for technology development and testing for new and improved animal health interventions. Illustrative examples of research topics intended to result in improved animal health interventions may include, but are not limited to, the following examples:

● vaccines

● preventive or curative veterinary pharmaceuticals

● pen-side diagnostic tests

In addition to enhancing research and development of animal health interventions, the Innovation Lab for Animal Health aims to support the development of scale-ready technologies.

Any of the animal health interventions listed above may be combined with the appropriate market, economic, social science, epidemiologic, and operational research to determine how to best scale the envisioned end product in the defined target region.

Human and Institutional Capacity Development (HICD) Support: The Animal Health Innovation Lab aims to support partner countries on their journey to self-reliance through capacity development. All capacity development efforts should benefit the local collaborating Universities and research organizations. Capacity development should also be implemented with the intent of facilitating the proposed research. Illustrative examples of HICD activities may include, but are not limited to, the following:

● training of local Master’s, Ph.D., and Veterinary Students

● Supporting collaborating Universities and research organizations to develop the institutional capacity to support laboratory-based livestock disease research programs including, but not limited to:

○ Support for developing biosafety programs

○ Support for developing and institutionalizing biosafety trainings

○ Support for developing standards for ethical treatment of research animals

○ Support and training for maintaining livestock in appropriate laboratory containment facilities

○ Support for procuring and maintaining basic laboratory equipment

ATTACHMENT 2 - RFI QUESTIONS

USAID is seeking information from entities with a robust understanding of the role of research and technology innovation within the food security agenda as it pertains to livestock and animal health. Respondents may respond to all or as many of the questions listed below that are within the bounds of their technical expertise. In their response, the submitter should include the number of the question and the question as stated below.

1. USAID is interested in understanding the breadth of the landscape of public sector, private sector, and civil society organizations that can enhance the research, product development, and/or scaling of the animal health interventions of the principal organization of the Animal Health Innovation Lab as a partner in a consortium model.

The Animal Health Innovation Lab will also be tasked with building capacity of local universities. Please describe your organizational capability in either, or both, of these components.

2. What are the factors and approaches that we should consider to increase the scaling potential of any animal health intervention developed by the Animal Health Innovation Lab?

3. What are the factors and approaches that we should consider to effectively build the capacity of local universities in Feed the Future target countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda) or Resilience countries (Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe)?