Request for Information_No. 72027819R00010_Amenmdnet No. 4.pdf

Subject: Request for Information No. 72027819R00010 / Amendment No.4

Activity Name: Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity (WEELA)

Date of Issuance: November 12, 2019

The Request for Information for the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity is amended for the following purposes:

- To publish the information, agenda, list of attendees and photos of the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity Co-Creation and Co-Design Workshop that was conducted on August 28, 2019 in Washington D.C.

Thank you for your continuing interest in this important development initiative.

Sincerely, Michael Ashkouri, Esq.

Supervisory Contracting Officer

ATTACHMENTS:

Attachment 1: Co-Creation and Co-Design Workshop Report

USAID/Jordan Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity (WEELA)

Co-Creation Workshop Report August 28, 2019

Table of Contents

Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity (WEELA)

Background/RFI August 26, 2019: Pre-meeting with the Mission Co-Creation Workshop Overview

One Day Workshop - August 28, 2019

Welcome & Introductions Why are we here?

Move. Review. Build. - WEELA Ideation Station Round Robin

Parking Lot Questions

Conclusion

Annex 1: RFI with Draft Statement of Objectives

Annex 2: Agenda

Annex 3: List of Attendees

Annex 4: Photos https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HuVrpY54DRNvW0jF5f6rHiOyoAeMh9tw/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GDNivh921Q-IZ9sGiWGaSCrg_cl-cbtY/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/15qv3atTK6DTKH18BjrdJD8sHqK7MXt19/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dPA2QnHJ2RIRX5k71qLmWZI3CRTd_5Sz?usp=sharing

Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity (WEELA)

Background/Request for Information (RFI)

Request for Information (RFI) 72027819R00010 was published on FedBizOpps on July 7, 2019 and closed on August 2, 2019, offering an opportunity for interested organizations and individuals to provide information, opinions, and recommendations on approaches for the implementation of the contemplated activity, WEELA. A draft Statement of Objectives1 was provided with the RFI.

The purpose of WEELA is to contribute to increasing women’s access to employment and leadership in Jordan by improving women’s access to the job market, enhancing the workforce enabling environment, and addressing inequalities and prohibitive social norms and conditions.

Co-creation is an innovative approach for USAID meant to freely foster collaboration, partnership, and innovation. The purpose of the Co-creation Workshop was for USAID to engage in robust conversations around the RFI and to gain industry insight regarding information, opinions, and recommendations related to potential WEELA design and implementation. Cognizant USAID personnel from USAID/Jordan were present.

The USAID/Jordan WEELA team chose to have internal USAID facilitators. All team members below traveled from Amman to participate in the Co-creation Workshop.

The USAID/Jordan WEELA team included: Garth Patterson, Kenana Amin, Haneen Al- Rasheed, and Diana Khoury.

One lead facilitator and co-facilitator were identified to design the agenda framework and to facilitate the workshop.

Facilitators: Stephanie Fugate and Jacqueline Taylor.

Dr. Harry Parker, representing the USAID Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Unit (OSDBU), provided welcome remarks to kick off the day’s event on behalf of the OSDBU Director, Mr. Mauricio Vera.

Prior to the Co-creation Workshop The facilitators spent time before the workshop reviewing the space, preparing materials, and working on final preparations, slide decks, and logistics. The WEELA team distributed an expectations packet to all participants who responded to the RFI and RSVP’d to the Co-creation Workshop.

Two days prior to the workshop, the facilitators met with the USAID/Jordan WEELA Team and OSDBU to ensure that all the details were in place for the workshop and that all participants understood the purpose and execution plan of the workshop. The execution plan included the following goals:

1 See Annex 1 for draft Statement of Objectives

● Understand this activity is not yet under procurement and review how to obtain the most information regarding the approach to the Mission’s goals.

● Ensure mission understands the co-creation process, the role of the facilitators, technical team, OSDBU and the USAID/Jordan OAA and where the workshop fits in and that everyone is aligned on the results of the workshop

● Identify Mission staff roles for the workshop and train as necessary including registration, facilitators, participants

Interested parties provided feedback to USAID/Jordan by addressing any three of eight technical questions and two cost related questions set forth in Attachment 2 of the RFI, as well as any feedback or questions related to the draft Statement of Objectives in Attachment 1.

The top three technical questions were:

1. What are the prospects for meaningful engagement with the private sector to increase women's participation in the labor force? What opportunities exist for a market-based approach to addressing the challenge of women's low participation and leadership in the labor market? For example, is there opportunity and political will; could the private sector solve this challenge by itself? Are there factors that constrain the private sector from engaging in this area? What is needed to incentivize the private sector to address this challenge, and how can USAID help alleviate constraints or promote incentives?

2. Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership Activity (WEELA) has three major objectives listed above. Should the three objective be tweaked to better reflect the needs and results, and if so how? What additional objectives should be added to support the current stagnation to women's increased access to employment and to overcome the impediments to women's active participation and leadership in the economy?

3. Self-reliance is a critical element of this activity. Are there implementation structures, and partnerships to achieving tangible real capacity building of local partners, long-term local solutions, and sustained results? AND What are your thoughts on the creation of meaningful coalitions and consortiums with and among local entities to further advance the objectives of this activity? What do you think are the best approaches for building such partnerships? What are your thoughts on approaches to guarantee that each of the partnering local entities would have a meaningful role in implementation?

Co-creation Workshop Overview The WEELA team shared the agenda2 with those who RSVP’d for the event and participants were expected to engage directly with each other over a shared understanding of the context and environment in which WEELA will be operating. Participants were told that this shared understanding of context and environment was a key step that established a foundation for the rest of the workshop. It helped to expose the full nature of the issues and gave participants an

2 See Annex 2 for WEELA Agenda opportunity to share their knowledge and points of view. Though participants all represented their own organizations, there was also a need to consider how best to build partnerships to reach this goal. The workshop process moved through several ideation exercises, each focused on different aspects of the three issues identified above. The facilitator ensured that all were actively engaged, that ideas were fully explored, and that the day’s discussion was precisely synopsized.

Participants were expected to come prepared to have conversations, challenge themselves and their peers, and to think critically around the RFI. The WEELA team emphasized the following questions throughout the day:

1. Do you have additional ideas in that particular area?

2. Is this actionable? Is it feasible? Why or why not?

3. Are there challenges? What constitutes failure?

4. What would make this successful?

It was also expected that all would discuss approaches to effective and meaningful coordination with and among USAID partners and donors and have some time for Q&A.

A USAID video3 on co-creation and intellectual property, was provided for participants before the workshop.

One-Day Workshop - August 28, 2019

Welcome & Introductions

Workshop participants arrived and were greeted by OSDBU representative, Eric Picard Welcome Comments were provided buy OSDBU - Dr. Harry Parker In addition, the Middle East Bureau represented by Jason Foley provided comments and welcomed those in attendance.

Why are we here?

Mr. Garth Patterson, Administrative Contracting Officer from USAID/Jordan, provided an overview of the purpose and expectations of the day. The USAID/Jordan WEELA team, represented by Kenana Amin, provided an overview of the activity. The presentation is available here for your information.

The facilitator, Ms. Stephanie Fugate, provided the expectations and ground rules, while and the logistical information was provided by her co-facilitator, Ms. Jacqueline Taylor, followed by a

3 Co-creation and Intellectual Property: https://youtu.be/Gscp1wZlm9k https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cw6Ay7aCiKOf91rE6D-66ajBsSECoybm https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cw6Ay7aCiKOf91rE6D-66ajBsSECoybm https://youtu.be/Gscp1wZlm9k networking break.

Move. Review. Build. - WEELA Ideation Station Round Robin

Three ideation stations were labeled for each of the three top technical questions answered within the RFI:

STATION 1: Meaningful engagement with the private sector to increase women's participation in the labor force; Market-based approach to addressing the challenge of women's low participation and leadership in the labor market

In summary, Station 1 discussed areas on how to engage the private sector, including challenges such as a weak growth environment nationally, and provided peer comments on gaps in business leadership and entrepreneurship, employment and gender-sector segregation. Also, the co-creation brought about some potential focus areas such as:

● Low/no growth environments with high unemployment;

● Working informally;

● Promotion of entrepreneurship in supply chain for products oriented towards women;

● Incentives.

STATION 2: Objectives to support the current stagnation to women's increased access to employment and to overcome the impediments to women's active participation and leadership in the economy

In summary, Station 2 suggested reframing certain objectives. For instance, objective 1 so responsibility is not on women, but is on private sector and enabling environment. Other suggestions for objectives included:

Objective 1: Expand range of positive forms of economic participation for women and men Objective 2: Including access to capital and network with an eye on entrepreneurship as well as leadership in established businesses

Round 3 within this ideation station resulted in a number of recommendations for this Station where linkages to Return on Investment (ROI) should be made with private sector employing women because it is simply good for business was circled as a major point. There were also discussions on what success would look like. For example, recommendations were:

● Improving women’s access to private sector jobs including leadership;

● Improving perceptions and advocacy;

● Stimulating better working conditions;

● Entrepreneurship.

STATION 3: Self-reliance is a critical element of this activity. This includes: implementation structures, and partnerships to achieving tangible real capacity building of local partners, long-term local solutions, and sustained results; creation of meaningful coalitions and consortiums with and among local entities as well as effective coordination with and among USAID partners and donors to further advance the objectives of this activity; and, best approaches for building such partnerships and to guarantee that each of the partnering local entities would have a meaningful role in implementation.

Successful partnership equals a sustainable partnership. The concept of self-reliance and what it means in the context of the WEELA RFI consisted of a number of discussions around some intriguing topics including what success would look like under this critical area:

● Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) present the business case and embody it in their own operations

● Comprehensive stakeholder engagement

In addition, the ideation Round 3 was on feasibility of such ideas, including transferring responsibility to Jordanian organizations over time or taking the lead in donor coordination in this space. USAID may need to initiate, but WEELA should facilitate activities in this sphere.

Additional photos are included in Annex 4.

The “Move. Review. Build.” concept is a co-creation technique that was used to allow all participants to participate and provide input in all three stations while reviewing and commenting on their peers thoughts and feedback on all stations. After each round, participants were asked to move to the next stage, peer review, and then build on what was done in the previous round.

Summary and Conclusion

It is clear that the USAID design is on the right track, with some suggestions for tweaking or refining the language to better capture the intended results. The participants also provided good, solid recommendations for how to engage more meaningfully with the private sector and local Jordanian actors. USAID is compiling the feedback from this workshop, as well as the responses from the RFI, and will be refining the SOO to reflect some of these recommendations as appropriate.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dPA2QnHJ2RIRX5k71qLmWZI3CRTd_5Sz?usp=sharing

Parking Lot Questions

The parking lot session was a Q&A session that provided participants an opportunity to post questions throughout the day on the parking lot board and then hear answers at the end of the co-creation workshop. There were 27 questions. Topics varied from acquisition questions to questions very technical in nature. This session concluded the co-creation workshop.

Below are the questions and answers provided at the workshop:

1) How can USAID support co-design between Implementing Partners and Jordanian women’s organizations in light of non-exclusive agreement requirements? Post award co-design? And how to support women’s organizations getting more funds?

USAID Response: USAID cannot dictate exclusivity or non-exclusivity among potential prime- and sub-contractors. Offerors should consider using the full array of partnering approaches found within existing regulations which may provide new opportunities for safely sharing information with potential partners while minimizing risk.

2) I understand the “do no harm” principle, but are we talking more about mitigating risk and having local ownership of the risks and outcomes? Some practices will change and will be perceived as doing harm. How will USAID approach this?

USAID Response: Offerors should consider if their interventions may have an adverse impact on beneficiaries and mitigate that risk to the extent possible. Offerors should work with local counterparts and stakeholders to monitor for unanticipated harms and adapt their approach accordingly. Finally, Offerors should ensure that local partners are adopting “do no harm” principles and not contributing to any potential harms.

3) How can USAID strengthen and better clarify the focus on disability? Will USAID support reasonable accommodations’ budgets?

USAID Response: Yes, if the Offeror thinks that this is needed, justify the need in your proposal and budget.

4) What is impact in 5 years? Especially in social norms change?

USAID Response: Social norms change is a long process. In 5 years, USAID wants to see noticeable progress towards this change and that dialogue challenging some of the restrictive norms has been initiated. Hopefully change on some issues or in some communities could also be achieved in the 5 year frame.

5) Will the target regions / governorates be specified?

USAID Response: If the opportunity is presented as a Statement of Objectives (SOO) it will be up to the Offeror to determine the target regions / governorates in their Contractor Statement of Work (CSOW). This can be a nationwide activity if deemed appropriate and necessary.

6) Can there be a focus on women-owned businesses in WEELA? This would likely need to include a focus on SMEs to a certain extent.

USAID Response: Currently we are not including entrepreneurship, women-owned businesses, and small and medium enterprises (SME) as a focus of WEELA. We are not considering start-up businesses under WEELA. There is a large number of donors already working on supporting entrepreneurship and start-ups and not enough work is performed on waged employment. If Offerors think that it is critical to work with women-owned businesses as employers with potential to improve their work environment or expand to take on more employees, then they could include that in their CSOW with a justification. That said, USAID will review the current focus of WEELA and determine if it will include entrepreneurship or not.

7) Is the Business Forecast up to date?

USAID Response: USAID updates the Business Forecast on rolling bases for each portfolio. The Business Forecast is up-to-date for this activity.

8) What does USAID mean by sustainability?

USAID Response: USAID’s interpretation of sustainability is:

- Mindsets are changed to enable women to work

- Policy enforcement continues beyond USAID

- Institutions are in place in Jordan and can continue the work beyond the USAID funding

9) Is USAID open to testing new ideas?

USAID Response: Yes, USAID is open to testing new ideas, but we also want to scale-up proven approaches where appropriate.

10) Has the CDCS process been completed in Jordan?

USAID Response: No, it will be completed early next year.

11) How open is USAID to innovation and approaches that might not be entirely supported by evidence?

USAID Response: USAID is open to innovation, testing, and learning. However, USAID does not want to “reinvent the wheel” and seeks results as well.

12) How does USAID envision WEELA working (or staying away from) the informal sectors of the labor market?

USAID Response: Our primary goal is to make an impact on employment in the formal sector. That said, it may also be necessary to engage with the informal sector in some instances, in addition to exploring options for how Jordan can measure the work done in the informal sector to provide a more comprehensive picture of the situation in Jordan.

13) When is the co-creation event in Amman?

USAID Response: The co-creation and co-design conference in Amman will be held in October.

14) What is the current level of coordination/collaboration amongst USAID implementers and/or other donors to ensure minimal overlap in programming? What mechanisms are in place?

USAID Response: The implementing partners within the economic growth sector meet on a regular basis and coordinate their work. The USAID Gender Team coordinates work within USAID, and there’s also a US Embassy Gender Working Group. Finally, there’s a Donor Gender Working Group, and other donor groups for specific topics.

15) Can USAID Jordan clarify how the release of this opportunity may / may not coincide with award of Jordan MELA as many SB IPs may bid on both and would like to mitigate any conflict of interest. Will MELA be awarded before WEELA is released?

USAID Response: WEELA is not yet under procurement. Potential Offerors must monitor the USAID business forecast for regular updates to this and other activities. .

16) With so many related USAID activities starting at the same time, what role will USAID play in coordinating so that collaboration can take place and be effective?

USAID Response: USAID is considering additional collaboration language to insert in our awards, but no final language has been determined.

17) Will the target population(s), especially age groups, be more clearly defined?

USAID Response: Please see the answers above. If this opportunity is presented as a SOO, Offerors must propose approaches in their CSOW and justify them in their proposal.

18) Some strategies for real effective change may require working in secondary schools, for example. Will this be acceptable under WEELA?

USAID Response: Please see the answers above. If this opportunity is presented as a

19) Will there be any sector or geographic market prioritization?

USAID Response: Please see the answers above. If this opportunity is presented as a

20) Why did USAID chose specific language around jobs in the private sector? It seems like a deliberate decision and strategic focus that might be diluted by adding small enterprise development focus.

USAID Response: Waged employment is one technical area with room for additional donor efforts. WEELA is not about creating jobs; it is about access to opportunities;

equipping and providing women with the needed skills, knowledge and support services to gain employment.

21) Where are the women and men with whom WEELA will be working? Will USAID plan another co-creation workshop in Jordan? If so, when?

USAID Response: The co-creation and co-designPre-solicitation conference in Amman will be held in October.

22) What is the genesis of WEELA? Did the Jordanian Government approach USAID or did USAID suggest this support to the Jordanian Government?

USAID Response: USAID initiated the WEELA design based on the need in Jordan. Our efforts were soon followed by the World Bank’s Mashreq Facility initiative for women’s economic participation, and this initiative is now being led by the Jordanian government.

It was also followed by USG’s launch of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, with which WEELA is in close alignment. USAID and the Jordanian Government share the same goals in terms of the need for an activity like WEELA.

23) Do we expect the proposals to follow a specific structure similar to the Statement of Objectives (SOO)?

USAID Response: Please see answers above. Potential Offerors should familiarize themselves with performance-based contracting and SOOs in particular. However, the awarding Contracting Officer will make a final determination on a solicitation, if any.

24) To what extent does USAID want this project to engage refugees?

USAID Response: The current USAID Mission strategy is to include everyone in Jordan.

However, since we are talking about interventions in the waged employment sector it might be difficult to include all possible stakeholders.

25) Will there be any focus on refugee populations, either Syrians or longer-term settled Palestinian refugees?

USAID Response: Please see answer above.

26) Does USAID expect WEELA to support interventions related to modifying and improving existing regulations?

USAID Response: Yes, WEELA will focus on modifying and improving existing regulations.

27) The need for trial and error -- i.e. Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) -- seems incompatible with performance-based contracts. Can USAID clarify this issue?

USAID Response: Performance-based contracts can accommodate CLA. USAID is considering the use of a SOO among its options for solicitation. USAID will publish its objectives and the potential Offerors will propose the CSOW to accomplish those objectives. USAID would then review the CSOW to determine what makes sense and what does not. There is no contradiction between using a SOO and CLA.