7200AA19F00013.J&A.pdf

Tab 2 – Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition (J&A)

TO: Karl Fickenscher, Assistant Administrator, DDI

VIA: Stella Alexander-Sergeeff, Supervisory Contracting Officer, M/OAA FROM:

Corinne Hart, Contracting Officer’s Representative, DDI/GenDev

SUBJECT: Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition to increase the ceiling for Task Order No. 7200OAA19F00013, Workplace Advancement for Gender Equality

1. This document sets forth the facts and rationale justifying the use of other than full and open competition, in accordance with AIDAR 706.302-70(a)(2), “Full and open competition need not be obtained when it would impair or otherwise have an adverse effect on programs conducted for the purposes of foreign aid, relief, and rehabilitation.”

AIDAR 706-302(b)(3)(i) - further states that the authority may be used for “an award for which the Assistant Administrator responsible for the project or program makes a formal written determination, with supporting findings, that compliance with full and open competition procedures would impair foreign assistance objectives and would be inconsistent with the fulfillment of the foreign assistance program.” This document was prepared by the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub (GenDev) within the Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation (DDI) of USAID.

Contracting Agency: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Contracting Activity: Workplace Advancement for Gender Equality (WAGE) Contractor: Tetra Tech ARD Task Number: 7200OAA19F00013 Task Order Performance of Period: July 31, 2019, to July 30, 2024 Task Order Type: Cost-Plus-Fixed Fee Completion

IDIQ No. AID-OAA-I-14-00059 IDIQ Ordering Period: September 25, 2014, to September 24, 2019 Period of Performance for Task Orders awarded under the IDIQ: Task Order awarded under the Making Cities Work IDIQ can have a period of performance up until September 24, 2024.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This is a request to approve a non-competitive modification to increase the Total Estimated Cost (TEC) of the WAGE Task Order from $17,883,765 by $5,311,672 to $23,195,437. The Task Order Period of Performance will remain unchanged.

The WAGE cost-plus-fixed fee Task Order was competitively awarded on July 31, 2019, after using fair opportunity ordering procedures. The activity was designed to increase gender equality in male dominated sectors in order to create tangible economic opportunities for women in countries around the world, as well as increase effectiveness of the critical partner companies in countries with a USAID presence.

In order to sufficiently support the partner industry companies, leverage the demand and momentum from interventions so far, and avoid jeopardizing USG investments to-date, DDI/GenDev estimates that a total contract ceiling of $23,195,437 is needed to fully maximize USG investments and leverage impact against foreign assistance objectives focused on achieving gender equality. Activities that will be completed with this additional ceiling increase include:

two additional Accelerated Courses; two additional regional male engagement trainings; new communications activities; twelve new company partners participating in and graduating from the Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program; a series of personal empowerment trainings with gender-based violence organizations through the Self-Empowerment and Equity for Change partnership with Johns Hopkins University; and additional staffing.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

In July 2019, USAID awarded the WAGE Task Order to Tetra Tech, under the Making Cities Work IDIQ. The current end date of the contract is July 30, 2024. WAGE partners with Tetra Tech, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, Promundo, the Iris Group, regional academic partners, and leading gender and change management experts to implement a highly specialized combination of training, peer mentoring, best practices, and tools to increase gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in traditionally male-dominated sectors.

Currently WAGE is experiencing significantly more demand than anticipated due to the success of ongoing activities and the exceptional results demonstrated by the company partners who have gone through the program. With the current TEC, the project is constrained and unable to accommodate the increased demand from new partners which is hindering the scalable impact that USAID can have under this award.

The programmatic structure of the activity has been designed by experts using best practices and the latest evidence in the diversity, equity and inclusion field, and has been stood up in a manner that allows for the easy acceptance of additional partners as USAID funding becomes available to support the entrance of new partners into the program. Given that there is interest from Operating Units across the Agency to buy-in to WAGE to enable partners from their priority countries and sectors to gain access to this specialized program, it makes sense for USAID to capitalize on the momentum and work with additional partners to scale its impact. Additionally, USAID has an opportunity to continue engaging existing partners if there was room to accept additional funding in order to maximize the impact of partner companies already participating in the program, all of which have expressed interest in continuing to partner until the end of the period of performance. Full and open competition would incur unnecessary delays and impair the Agency’s critical foreign-policy objectives on achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment and relationships with private-sector entities in partner countries that seek to engage with the project.

WAGE supports the key USG foreign assistance objective of advancing equal rights and opportunities for women and reducing disparities between women and men in access to, control over, and benefit from economic resources as well as wealth opportunities and services. By providing a mechanism and methodology for USAID to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment in the private sector, WAGE helps to improve sustainable development outcomes in line with USAID’s Gender & Women’s Empowerment Policy 2020 and is consistent with the goals outlined in the March 8, 2021, Executive Order on Establishment of the White House Gender Policy Council. Additionally, this mechanism can serve as a keyway to achieve the goals of the newly announced and USAID-managed Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund since its priorities are directly aligned with the foreign assistance objectives that WAGE achieves increasing gender equality, women’s empowerment, and addressing gender-based violence.

WAGE advances these USG foreign assistance objectives by providing a highly specialized and comprehensive combination of training, peer mentoring, best practices, and tools to increase gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in traditionally male-dominated sectors.

This includes the following activities:

● Engendering Utilities - Under WAGE, USAID implements its Engendering Utilities program, which delivers a unique approach to improving gender equality in male dominated sectors based upon the Delivering Gender Equality: A Best Practices Framework for Male-Dominated Industries. Using customized tools, best practices, demand-driven coaching, and a Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program led by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Engendering Utilities builds partners’ staff capacity to implement gender equality interventions in their organizations.

● Workforce Gender Equality Accelerated Program: A highly tailored and specialized six-month program built upon the Delivering Gender Equality: A Best Practices Framework for Male-Dominated Industries, that includes an intensive one-week training, an organizational gender assessment, and specialized change management coaching that prepares managers to become positive agents of change within their organizations.

● Self-Empowerment and Equity (SEE) for Change Initiative - SEE Change empowers women around the world through an evidence-based training approach that increases personal agency, helping women in the developing world realize their leadership potential, foster self-reliance, and achieve their personal and professional goals.

● Male Engagement for Gender Equality: WAGE delivers week-long male engagement workshops for leaders and employees in male-dominated industries with its partner, Promundo, an industry leader in engaging men and boys in partnership with women, girls to advance gender equality. WAGE raises awareness of the important role men play in changing corporate culture and inspires and motivates men to become vocal leaders for gender equality.

The additional ceiling will enable Tetra Tech to accept additional buy-ins over the remaining period of the contract with one additional cohort (12 additional partners) under Engendering Utilities.

Additionally, Tetra Tech will accommodate existing demand for the Workforce Gender Equality Accelerated Program, and roll-out an additional 2 partnerships with regional academic partners and training centers over the next 3 years to make the course more broadly available globally. Tetra Tech will also continue to support existing partners to maintain and deliver the program on an annual basis, ensuring the program is strongly rooted within each partners’ regular offering and is sustainable beyond the life of WAGE.

Additionally, WAGE will further roll out the training program via the SEE Change regional hubs which are being developed under the current WAGE contract, to additional stakeholders.

With expanded ceiling and budget, WAGE will regionally roll-out an additional two male engagement Training of Trainers (ToTs), as well as support existing 40+ Engendering Utilities partners and beyond to receive the training and implement within their organizations.

All of these activities are within the current scope of the WAGE Task Order, scaling and expanding these highly specialized activities that have been developed and refined in the first 2 years of the contract, building on work begun by Tetra Tech under the SURE mechanism three years ago. The activities to be completed will build on and scale the successful pilot activities implemented thus far within the existing contract scope in the remaining 3 years of the contract and will enable USAID to fully realize the positive impact of their investments by enabling the project to build upon lessons learned for the pilots and multiplying the reach of these gender equality interventions. The requested increase to the TEC (in the amount of ($5,311,672) is in direct response to immediate, known demand and is needed as an interim or bridging mechanism to avoid losing these investment possibilities. In order to accurately project the cost of the additional activities proposed, we developed a detailed estimate of the costs of these activities based upon our current and expected billing. The budget increase we have proposed is thus based upon our best estimate of what these activities will actually cost to implement. From our budget estimations, $5,311,672 will enable the project to fully take advantage of the curriculum design and piloting work completed under WAGE to greatly increase the reach of activities and to best capitalize on the investment that USAID has already made.

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition: The authority permitting this exception to full and open competition is AIDAR Part 706.302-70

Impairment of foreign aid programs. (a) Authority. (1) Citation: 40 U.S.C. 113. “(2) Full and open competition need not be obtained when it would impair or otherwise have an adverse effect on programs conducted for the purposes of foreign aid, relief, and rehabilitation.” Under this authority, AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(3)(i) is used as justification for this action. “(3)(i) An award for which the Assistant Administrator responsible for the project or program makes a formal written determination, with supporting findings, that compliance with full and open competition procedures would impair foreign assistance objectives, and would be inconsistent with the fulfillment of the foreign assistance program;”

DDI/GenDev considered the other FAR and AIDAR authorities for other than full and open competition prior to requesting approval of this J&A, and no other authorities were deemed suitable for this action.

● AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(4) is not applicable as this is not an award under Title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

● AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(5) is not applicable as, even though WAGE Task Order is currently the only Agency contract providing the services, these services do not correspond to the typical definition of “highly specialized services.”

● FAR 6.302-1 is not applicable as, even though the WAGE Task Order, as mentioned above, is currently the only Agency contract providing such services, it is possible that other responsible sources for similar technical services could be identified in the future.

● FAR 6.302-2 is not applicable as this action does not represent an emergency or life threatening situation; therefore, not qualifying as unusual and compelling urgency. ● FAR 6.302-3 is not applicable as the action does not pertain to a national emergency, essential engineering, research, or development.

● FAR 6.302-4 is not applicable as the action is not precluded by the terms of an international agreement or a treaty between the United States and a foreign government or international organization.

● FAR 6.302-5 is not applicable as it is not expressly authorized or required by a statute.

● FAR 6.302-6 is not applicable as the disclosure of the agency’s needs, as part of a full and open announcement, would not in itself compromise national security. ● FAR 6.302-7 is not applicable as it has not been determined that full and open competition would be counter to the public interest.

● FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B) to (G) are not applicable as this action is outside the terms of the basic IDIQ ordering period.

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition that requires use of the authority cited:

Per AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(3)(i), full and open competition procedures would impair foreign assistance objectives and would be inconsistent with the fulfillment of the foreign assistance program. WAGE has identified and fostered highly impactful, specialized, unique partnerships with public and private sector actors globally in male-dominated workplaces. A significant lapse in USAID engagement resulting from a full and open competition would result in delays that would be detrimental to the university, private sector and parastatal relationships that Tetra Tech has fostered and secured. These delays would undermine USAID’s standing as a key partner in increasing gender equality within male dominated partner institutions across the 21 countries where the project is currently working.

The Tetra Tech team and its existing network of partners and specialists are exceptionally positioned to continue implementation without delays or interruption within the existing contract scope and time period and rapidly scale up interventions through well-established partnerships with non-disclosure agreements and letters of collaboration have been carefully formulated and maintained, with required coaching and networking activities.

WAGE has attracted a large volume of demand from potential partners that it is not currently able to meet. WAGE has already hit its budget ceiling to accommodate the last and 4th round of partners to join its Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program, with 3 years left and time to implement additional cohorts. Failure to increase the current ceiling for the WAGE contract in response to immediate demand from Operating Units, including Missions, could impair the Agency’s critical foreign-policy objectives, our relationships with private-sector entities in partner countries that seek to engage in our new model of development assistance, and DDI/GenDev’s ability to meet the gender equality goals outlined by the White House.

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was publicized as required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.2 [AIDAR 705.2].

As discussed earlier, efforts to solicit from other sources would result in damaging time delays that could waste Government resources spent. Tetra Tech is uniquely situated and qualified to perform these activities in the most effective and timely manner; as evidenced by its unique relationships with an existing 43 public and private sector partners from over 29 countries, who are employing specific expertise to address gender equality in male-dominated workplaces. Tetra Tech is well positioned to scale and expand these highly specialized activities that have been developed and refined in the first 1.5 years of the contract, building on work begun by Tetra Tech under the SURE mechanism three years ago. Contracting with another entity would cause USAID to lose the leverage and momentum of existing university, parastatal and private sector partnerships, which cannot easily be replicated.

FAR 6.305(a) requires COs to make J&A documents publicly available 14 days after award, except for information exempt from public disclosure. Should the subject J&A be approved, the cognizant CO will make this document available publicly on beta.sam.gov within 14 days of its execution.

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

In accordance with FAR 15.402, adequate cost competition took place when the original award was competed. The cognizant Contracting Officer will ensure that all services procured under the proposed TEC increase will be fair and reasonable based on historical costs and review of proposed costs. The anticipated costs are regulated under the labor categories established for the MWC IDIQ and WAGE Task Order. As such, the Contractor is bound by the terms and conditions of the IDIQ provisions related to salary approvals, labor category ceilings, etc. This ensures that the cost to the Government of permitting these buy-ins to occur will be fair and reasonable.

In addition, each Mission requesting services under the WAGE Task Order submitted estimated costs to the COR in Washington. These estimated costs are based on the Mission staff’s knowledge of each country’s context and operating realities. They have also been informed by Mission staff’s review of the general costs of supply chain analysis services that have been incurred under the WAGE Task Order through the previous buy-ins to the mechanism.

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

USAID made the determination to increase the TEC through a modification rather than opening the expansion of activities to a full and open competition after it determined that the modification will reduce the time for solicitation, keep the momentum of the consortium, provide increased time for activity implementation and completion, and safeguard the investment up-to-date. There are three contractors capable of performing the work; however, competition at this time would impair foreign assistance objectives by significantly delaying the activities. The WAGE Task Order Contractor has specific expertise required to continue implementing and scaling the program in an effective and efficient way whereas the other potential contractors lack the specificity of expertise required to conduct this work immediately. They also do not have the well-established partnerships required to continue implementing this work and to scale it through the Accelerated Course. Therefore, procuring the services through another contractor would impose substantial additional costs, as described above, and cause excessive loss of time.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

We are currently not only in a global health pandemic, but in a global economic crisis.

Investment in gender equality in workplaces, that WAGE squarely supports, is a key recovery and resilience strategy and remains a critical need without delay. WAGE is supporting gains to gender equality and building resilience of companies it works with; stepping back or reducing this work at this critical time amidst a crisis comes with high costs. The cost of inaction at this time is high for WAGE partners, gains that USAID has made with these partners, and compromises the USG’s international development goals. Ultimately, failure to continue and deepen work put in place by WAGE will result in back sliding in gains made toward gender equality, may result in preventable job less, especially for women, and in preventable GBV within economically stressed homes and places of work.

The White House recently submitted an executive order to establish the White House Gender Policy Council to advance gender equality goals throughout the USG and reaffirmed its commitment to Women, Peace, and Security, which emphasizes the importance of including women in decision-making and leadership. In July 2021, Generation Equality Forum Action Coalition leaders made a commitment to make irreversible gender equality progress by 2026. In May 2021, the G7 committed to invest $15B over next two years as part of the 2X Challenge to help women in developing countries recover economically from COVID-19. This will include improving access to jobs, building resilient businesses, and responding to COVID-19’s devastating economic impacts.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed an interest, in writing, in the acquisition:

As noted in Item 6 above, the proposed action was excepted from the requirement to be publicly synopsized pursuant to AIDAR 705.202(b)(1). Therefore, no expressions of interest were received in advance of the subject J&A.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

The Agency intends to compete future requirements in this area. GenDev is currently planning and designing a new mechanism that will incorporate a follow on to this award as well as conducting market research to determine which instrument is most appropriate for follow on activity. Category Management will be given due consideration, to contribute to Agency Priority Goals in Best in Class.

12. Technical or requirement personnel certification:

In accordance with FAR 6.303, I hereby certify that the technical statements included above, and which form a basis for the justification are complement and accurate.

/S/ September 1, 2021 Corinne Hart Date COR, DDI/GenDev

13. Contracting Officer Certification:

I hereby certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

___________________ September 2, 2021 Stella Alexander-Sergeeff Date Supervisory Contracting Officer, Office of Acquisition and Assistance

Approved:

/s/ Kar� ��k���c�e� 9/14/2021 Karl Fickenscher Assistant Administrator, DDI

/s/