AFINAL RFI 654 23 2023 Supporting For Integrated Health Activities in Angola Signed.pdf

Notice Type: Request for Information (RFI)

To: Interested Organizations, both Local and International in Nature

Subject: Supporting for Integrated Health Activities in Angola

RFI Number : RFI-654-23-2023

USAID/Angola Release Date: March 1, 2023

RFI Clarification Questions due date: March 8, 2023; 11:00am (Angola Time)

Response Due Date: (Closing Date for the Submission of Responses to the RFI)

March 22, 2023; 11:00am (Angola Time)

Submission Email address: PretoriaApplications@usaid.gov

Dear Prospective Applicants:

This is a Request for Information (RFI). This is NOT a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Application (RFA). In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are NOT considered offers and must not be construed as a commitment by the U.S. Government or USAID to issue any solicitation or Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), or ultimately award a contract or assistance agreement on the basis of this RFI, or to pay for any information voluntarily submitted as a result of this request.

USAID posts its competitive business opportunities on www.sam.gov and www.grants.gov and other local platforms. It is the potential applicant’s responsibility to monitor these sites for announcement of new opportunities. Please note that responding to this RFI will not give any advantage to any organization or individual in any subsequent competition. Any/all comments received will be strictly for information gathering purposes. USAID will not pay for any costs associated with responding to this RFI. Responses may be used by USAID without restriction or limitation and shall become the property of USAID. Therefore, proprietary information or any other information that cannot be shared should not be sent.

This Request for Information (RFI) is a preliminary call for expressions of interest for supporting HIV/AIDS and integrated health programs in Angola.

http://www.grants.gov

Request for Information (RFI) No.: RFI-654-23-2023 :Integrated Health Activity for Angola

Interested parties should provide a short (a maximum of 8 pages) expression of interest, addressing the issues and opportunities described below, and offering initial ideas (not in detail) discussing the capacity and capability of their organization to address any or all of the questions in Attachment B.

Questions regarding this notice can be directed to PretoriaApplications@usaid.gov by the due date, mentioned above. Please note, all individual questions may not be directly answered - similar questions may be combined or adjusted.

Kindly submit responses to this RFI to Fatima dos Santos, Acquisition and Assistance Specialist, USAID/Southern Africa at PretoriaApplications@usaid.gov with the RFI No. RFI-654-23-2023 on the subject line no later than the date and time stated above.

Late submissions will not be accepted.

Thank you for your interest in USAID’s activities.

Sincerely, Lealie M. Perry Regional Contracting and Agreement Officer USAID/Southern Africa

Total number of Attachments 2:

● A - Activity Background

● B - Request for Information Questions mailto:pretoriaapplications@usaid.gov mailto:PretoriaApplications@usaid.gov

ATTACHMENT A

Activity Background

USAID seeks feedback from potential responsible local non-governmental organizations/entities that can provide sustainable, quality HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services and family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), maternal, newborn, and child Health (MNCH) services in the Benguela, Cunene, Lunda Sul, and Huambo provinces in Angola.

This new USAID activity with the preliminary title “Uplifting Your family And community’s Health, Enhancing Lives, and Ending HIV/AIDS”, or simply, “UYAHELE” mainly aims to deliver high quality comprehensive HIV/AIDS, FP/RH, and MCH services via locally-led, community-based, family-centered solutions that are also in alignment with the Government of Angola’s “Born Free to Shine” priorities. USAID is seeking input regarding the organizations’ capacity to support the USAID/PEPFAR and UNAIDS 95/95/95 fast track targets, as well as service delivery and technical assistance to improve and promote integrated health services to ensure that locally-led, community-based, family-centered services are available to all Angolans.

This activity will contribute to the Government of the Republic of Angola (GRA) National Health Development Plan, mainly focusing on HIV/AIDS service delivery and technical assistance interventions in targeted provinces. This activity will also support emergency preparedness and sustained response to emerging infections such as COVID-19 subject to need and availability of funds. In addition to HIV/AIDS services, this activity will include opportunities for technical assistance to be provided to the GRA at all levels to increase management of and responsive to emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks, as funds are available. A key priority in this activity is to support the GRA’s national health systems strengthening and build upon USAID’s existing health program and other USG investments.

The proposed activity will contribute directly to the GRA’s goal to “promote universal access to health care, ensuring equity in care, improving the management and financing mechanisms of the National Health System, offering quality, timely and humane services, with a view to combating poverty and enhancing well-being” as stated in the National Health Development Plan 2013-2025 (Plano Nacional de Desenvolvimento de Saúde, or PNDS 2012-2025). Specifically, the activity will contribute to four of the GRA’s overarching strategic objectives:

● Improve the provision of quality health care, in terms of promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation, strengthening the link between primary care, secondary and tertiary care;

● Operationalize the provision of health care at each of the four levels of the health pyramid (central, provincial, municipality and community level), responding to the population's expectations;

● Improve the organization, management and functioning of the National Health System, through the allocation of the necessary resources and the adoption of rules and procedures that increase the efficiency and quality of the National Health System (NHS) responses; and

● Accelerate the response to the social determinants in order to reduce (HIV mother to child transmission) maternal and infant mortality.

CONTEXT

Progress toward HIV epidemic control presents an ongoing challenge for Angola.

According to UNAIDS, an estimated 320,000 people are living with HIV in Angola with an overall adult prevalence of 1.6 percent. Only 57 percent of PLHIV know their HIV status, 41 percent are on ART, and viral suppression is undetermined. In Angola, HIV affects women and girls disproportionally, with the prevalence among women more than double that of their male counterparts at 2.1 percent and 1.0 percent respectively.

Angola has one of the youngest populations in the world, with an estimated 65 percent of Angolans aged 15-24 by 2021 (INE Population Estimates, 2014-2050).

Estimated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) in Angola is 19 percent, the third highest across the African continent. Moreover, Angola is among the 10 countries with the highest fertility rate in the world with an overall fertility rate of 6.2 children per woman. Coupled with poor prenatal coverage services, currently estimated at just 33 percent (DHS 2015-2016), outcomes for mothers and infants are subpar. The estimated percentage of early infant diagnosis is at 2.4% with HIV-exposed infants (HEI) who receive essential early infant diagnosis (EID) services by 2 months of age is at a staggeringly low 3 percent. Transmission of HIV rates during breastfeeding are above 15 percent. The estimated number of children living with HIV (CLHIV) is 36,000 (UNAIDS, 2021) and only 19 percent are linked to ART, the lowest pediatric ART coverage rate globally. These data led the country to prepare a specific plan to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV and to focus efforts on improving these indicators.

According to the World Bank (2022), the COVID-19 pandemic impacted women’s economic status more significantly than men in Angola. Given that schools were closed, the number of young persons who were not working or studying increased by

29.6 percent for men and 35.2 percent for women. There are significant wage inequalities across sectors and genders. The average salary in 2019 was AOA 47,223 per month, with an unadjusted gender pay gap of more than 50 percent between men (AOA 61,727) and women (AOA 28,917). Average salaries for women were lower than those of men across all economic sectors. These inequities directly impact a woman’s ability to support herself, her children, and allow personal agency to make health and other decisions.

HOW TO SUBMIT A RESPONSE:

Interested parties should provide eight (8) pages, including three attachments, expression of interest, addressing the issues and opportunities described below, and offering initial ideas (not in detail) discussing the capacity and capability of their organization to address any or all of the questions in Attachment B.

Submitted documents and correspondence must be in the English language in Microsoft Word compatible formats and use 12 point font. Please number each page consecutively.

Please do not enter any unsolicited personally identifiable (PII) information for yourself or others in your responses.

Submit the information requested electronically to the Acquisition and Assistance Specialist, Fatima dos Santos at PretoriaApplications@usaid.gov. and include:

RFI Number: RFI-654-23-2023

Date:

Name / Email Subject line: USAID/Angola Integrated Health Activities RFI

Affiliation/Organization:

Address

● Short narrative, including capabilities, strengths and expected contributions

● Comments on outputs

● Comments on questions

Please attach relevant documents that support your comments to the questions below up to a maximum of three pages for annexes.

[END OF ATTACHMENT A]

mailto:pretoriaapplications@usaid.gov

ATTACHMENT B

Request for Information Questions

Respondents are invited to answer the questions and items listed below.

Responses should be no more eight (8)-pages including annexes/attachments with up to one page status declaration that an organization meets the PEPFAR definition of a local partner and one page summarizing your organization’s capacity to support the USAID and PEPFAR objectives of 95/95/95 and provide service delivery and technical assistance to improve Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) and Family Planning/Reproductive Health (FP/RH) services. The remaining pages (up to five pages) should answer Technical and Integration of Services questions and provide any other insights or experience in integrating HIV/AIDS, MNCH, and/or FP/RH services to ensure locally-led, community-based, family-centered solutions to enable sustainable growth, government ownership and high-quality services are available for Angolans to improve health outcomes. Please include specific experience as it relates to the targeted provinces for this upcoming award (Benguela, Cunene, Lunda Sul, and Huambo) and any other contextual insight based on geography (e.g. urban vs. peri-urban vs. rural).

respondents are encouraged to include history of partnerships among organizations in the submission of proposals, including by a consortia of partners with diverse but complementary expertise in implementing programs in similar context.

Attachment B: Section 1 Technical Questions

1. Provide a brief summary of organizational core technical and structural capabilities, including any relevant experience in HIV/AIDS clinical and/or community implementation. Please include details on populations served, geographic locations prioritized, models of service delivery used, financial management experience, organizational capacity, staffing, information system for data, and commodity procurement and distribution.

2. Describe your organization's approach, including any relevant experience and results in health services, specifically HIV/AIDS services, at the health facility and community levels to promote equitable, client-centered, high quality health services.

3. How has your organization supported the capacity building, strengthening, and sustainability of government systems and programs including providing direct technical assistance to the Government of Angola or other national systems in the Sub-Saharan region?

4. Explain how your organization assured the sustainability of HIV/AIDS or other health responses in your current/past programs. Please provide examples.

5. What tools/resources/funding/technical assistance do you think are most important for USAID to consider when implementing our commitment to advancing localization and supporting PEPFAR’s 5 Year Strategy in Angola.

6. How can USAID use innovation and cross-cutting issues (such as gender, strategic partnerships, etc.) to develop more effective HIV/AIDS programming?

7. In addition to the above questions, please mention any general recommendations relevant to HIV/AIDS programming that would help USAID/Angola in the design of future HIV/AIDS activities.

Attachment B: Section 2 Local Partner Eligibility Checklist

Respondents should provide their organization alignment to the PEPFAR Definition of a Local Partner as defined by PEPFAR Country Operational Plan/Regional Operational Plan 2023 (COP/ROP23). To be considered a local partner, an organization must meet the following criteria:.

An Individual:

1. An individual must be a citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident of and have their principal place of residence in the country or region served by the PEPFAR program with which the individual is or may become involved, and a sole proprietorship must be owned by such an individual

OR

An entity (e.g., a corporation or partnership) must meet all three areas of eligibility:

1. Either, must be incorporated or legally organized under the laws of, and have its principal place of business in, the country served by the PEPFAR program with which the entity is involved; OR must exist in the region where the entity’s PEPFAR programs are implemented.

2. Either, must be at 75% beneficially owned at the time of application by individuals who are citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of that same country;

OR at least 75% of the entity’s staff (senior, mid-level, support) at the time of application must be citizens or lawful admitted permanent residents of that same country.

https://www.workwithusaid.org/blog/usaid-s-commitment-to-advancing-localization https://www.workwithusaid.org/blog/usaid-s-commitment-to-advancing-localization https://www.bing.com/search?q=pepfar+5+year+strategy&cvid=8159de62a6a24554a7be6afd4c46b215&aqs=edge.0.0l2j69i64j69i11004.3344j0j1&pglt=43&FORM=ANNAB1&PC=U531

3. Where an entity has a Board of Directors, at least 51% of the members of the Board must also be citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of such country.

For purposes of this RFI, “Principal Place of Business” means the primary location where the business is performed.

The purpose of the questions below is to identify the availability of local organizations who have or may have the capacity to provide the anticipated services in the HIV/AIDS arena:

Yes/No (1) is incorporated or legally organized under the laws of, and has its principal place of business in the country served by the PEPFAR program with which the entity is involved;

Yes/No (2) is at least 75% beneficially owned by any of:

● individuals who are citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of that same country, as above

● corporations, partnerships or other arrangements that qualify as “local partners”; or

Yes/No (3) at least 75% of the entity’s staff (senior, mid-level, support) must be citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of that same country, as above and at least 75% of the entity’s senior staff (i.e., managerial and professional personnel) must be citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of that same country, as above; and

Yes/No (4) where an entity has a Board of Directors, at least 51% of the members of the Board must also be citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of such country Angola.

[END OF ATTACHMENT B]

[END OF RFI-654-23-2023]