Attachment J.1 - GRIP SOO.pdf

ATTACHMENT J.1 – STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO) FOR THE GREEN

RECOVERY INVESTMENT PLATFORM (GRIP) PROCUREMENT

J.1 BACKGROUND

On November 8, 2021, Administrator Power announced an ambitious target at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 26 for USAID to mobilize $150 billion in private and public finance by 2030. USAID will catalyze the majority of this funding from private sector investments—as well as from public sector investments from partner country governments—through targeted programs and partnerships. Also at COP 26, USAID made ambitious commitments to help developing countries respond and adapt to climate change impacts and lower their current and projected future emissions.

USAID is committed to achieving the economic and socio-political opportunities associated with ambitious climate actions, including enhancing equity, wellbeing, natural resource stewardship, and sustained prosperity for all. Bold and inclusive climate action could lead to more than $26 trillion in economic gains globally by 2030, unlocking new investment opportunities and supporting job growth and equitable economic development.

This potential economic growth is particularly salient in the current moment, when the COVID- 19 pandemic has severely disrupted the global economy and exacerbated economic, social and health inequalities, requiring major investments in economic recovery that are challenging to mobilize. Investments are also needed to build economic resilience over the long term and address the structural global and local economic inequities that magnified the impacts of the pandemic. Thus, the recovery effort requires both near-term urgent actions and longer-term fundamental changes.

The imperative to urgently address climate change adaptation and mitigation priorities and to promote an equitable COVID-19 recovery are central to USAID’s mission of inclusive development. Climate change has its biggest impacts on the poor and could push 100 million more people into extreme poverty by 2030 and displace up to a billion people by 2050. Evidence shows that climate change impacts diverse segments of the population differently, with disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations, including Indigenous peoples, youth, women, persons with disability, among others, who often experience unequal access to and control over resources and economic opportunities that could enhance their adaptive capacity and overall resilience to climate change. For example, women and children are more likely to die from climate disasters. Despite being disproportionately affected by climate change, women, youth, and other traditionally underrepresented groups play a crucial role in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience building for whole communities. Our responses must therefore seek greater engagement and self-determination of those normally excluded and contribute to closing existing gaps and inequities in societies.

To meet these crises, we need creative approaches that use public finance and a public regulatory environment catalytically to stimulate many orders of magnitude greater private finance and business investments. The Green Recovery Investment Platform (GRIP) aims to mobilize private financial flows and private sector actions to address climate change while stimulating an inclusive economic recovery from the pandemic. GRIP will also directly be utilized to meet our Climate Strategy targets and Presidential Initiatives : President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) and The Plan to Conserve Forests.

In particular, much higher private and public investment in core energy transformation areas --renewable energy on a utility scale, power system flexibility, increased access to clean energy services/technology, improved energy efficiency, and cleaner transport -- will be for the next twenty years a paramount area of global need for increased investment that will mitigate CO2 emissions. These types of energy transition initiatives also support economic recovery goals as they can create up to three times more jobs than fossil fuel investments, with a global average of

16.5 jobs created per million dollars invested (higher in developing markets).

Similarly financing and technical assistance to help small and medium agricultural enterprises recover from the pandemic can be targeted toward those businesses that adopt climate resilient practices themselves while helping their client farmers adopt improved technologies such as higher yielding drought tolerant crop varieties. Nature-based solutions, including improved management of terrestrial and marine resources, can deliver climate resilience and emissions mitigation benefits while protecting and enhancing biodiversity and providing long-term economic and development benefits.

USAID also seeks to support integrated climate risk management and build sustainable systems that allow for a just transition, model exposure to climate risks, improve preparations and put plans in place to enable countries to respond quickly after shocks. The private sector and development finance institutions (DFIs) are important partners in providing the tools and finance to support these new approaches to managing risk.

To achieve these results, and in support of the U.S. International Climate Finance Action Plan announced at the Climate Leaders Summit in April 2021, USAID committed at COP26 in November 2021 to mobilizing $150 billion in climate finance by 2030. This finance will support climate change outcomes, including:

● reducing, avoiding or sequestering six billion metric tons of CO2e emissions;

● protecting, restoring or improving management of a 100 million of hectares;

● enhancing the climate resilience of 500 million people;

● improving participation and leadership for Indigenous People, local communities and women and youth in at least 40 countries;

● and assisting 80 countries implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions

(NDCs) or National Adaptation Plans (NAPs).

GRIP is a signature tool USAID will use, combined with other mechanisms and actions, to accomplish these climate finance, mitigation, and adaptation goals.

J.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND THEORY OF CHANGE

Problem Statement

Addressing the climate crisis and pandemic recovery requires taking urgent actions in all sectors of the economy. Achieving action will require engaging diverse actors across economic, social and governance systems. Solutions are often cross-sectoral and cannot be achieved solely with public funds and by government actions. Private investments, finance, and actions that reduce emissions or enhance adaptation are central to our collective success. USAID recognizes these realities in its Climate Change Strategy which highlights the needs for 1) urgent adaptation and mitigation actions in all sectors, 2) dramatic scaling up of inclusive private finance for climate actions, 3) transition toward more sustainable economic and financial systems, 4) private sector engagement and partnerships to initiate, sustain and scale climate actions, and 5) enhanced inclusion and equity. The strategy takes an “all hands on deck” approach, requiring contributions from all development sectors and USAID Operating Units.

Similarly, under the U.S. COVID-19 Global Response and Recovery Framework USAID will work to “boost private sector investment and job creation” to help “bolster economies and other critical systems under stress due to COVID-19 to prevent backsliding and enable recovery.” It also commits to promote equity in its COVID-19 actions and elevate the voices and participation of diverse, and often marginalized, segments of the population.

Despite the necessity and urgency of engaging and mobilizing the private sector toward addressing these crises, it is often challenging to structure partnerships quickly and efficiently, to find those opportunities where private sector interests align with development interests, and to incentivize and monitor actions that deliver robust, equitable development outcomes.

USAID needs ways to work multi- and cross-sectorally to address these complex, interconnected crises. USAID Operating Units (Washington and Field Missions) across all countries and regions where USAID works need more user friendly, efficient processes to quickly address urgent priorities through partnerships and private finance mobilization. Similarly, private sector organizations that have made climate change, pandemic recovery, and equity commitments are seeking more straightforward ways to partner with USAID to achieve mutual goals.

Theory of Change

GRIP builds on the lessons learned from USAID’s extensive experience in mobilizing finance and private sector actions and incorporates successful approaches from previous efforts, including INVEST, HEARTH, CEADIR, CATALYZE, West Africa Trade and Investment Hub, Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships, Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation, Aceli Africa, Green Invest Asia, ILRG, USAID facilitation of energy sector PPPs in Latin America and the E&E region during the 1990s and 2000s, and others. GRIP will deliver catalytic facilitation and incentives for private sector actions and pursue a learning and capacity building agenda to enhance and scale up successful approaches, identify and resolve challenges, and persuasively convey the story of successes achieved. USAID hypothesizes that:

If an efficient partnerships and investment platform is established and functions effectively; and If private sector networks, organizational capacities, and enabling environment are strengthened;

and If lessons and results of partnerships are captured, disseminated and scaled;

Then private sector actions and finance will provide impactful solutions to urgent climate change adaptation and mitigation challenges while stimulating an equitable recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Underlying the development hypothesis and intended results are a number of assumptions as outlined below. These assumptions articulate factors that are critical to the theory of change such that the Contractor will be able to effectively achieve the expected results. Assumptions include that:

● Value propositions (financial return and/or development impact) for investments are clear and persuasive, especially for adaptation;

● Private sector interest and commitment to climate change will continue; and

● COVID-19 will continue to impact the operating environment for years, but will not result in extensive market shutdowns.

J.3 SCOPE OF WORK

J.3.1 Purpose and Objectives

USAID and the U. S. Government (USG) more broadly are committed to dramatically and rapidly scaling up actions to address climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. This commitment extends to supporting a global economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that addresses long-standing societal and economic inequities.

Collectively, the world has a signal opportunity to promote more sustainable and inclusive economies and services - a green recovery. GRIP is intended to catalytically use public resources to stimulate private sector finance and private sector actions that support an equitable green recovery.

GRIP Purpose: To mobilize private finance and private sector actions that support the transition to an equitable and resilient net-zero economy while stimulating recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic

Recognizing the need for dramatically enhanced climate finance and climate change actions that also help countries and communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the global community has pledged to mobilize greater private finance and increased corporate actions. To help make this happen, GRIP is designed to be a management and technical assistance platform that facilitates partnerships and investments, improves enabling policies and finance ecosystems, and enhances learning and capacity to address these challenges.

The GRIP purpose is aligned with the USAID Climate Change Strategy which envisions ambitious near-term targeted climate actions, as well as systemic transformations to achieve net-zero, resilient economies. The Strategy envisions mobilizing finance for urgent adaptation and mitigation actions that achieve impact at a scale commensurate with the climate crisis. The Strategy also envisions catalyzing transformative changes to economic and financial systems such that greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced across multiple sectors, and climate risk is systematically internalized and addressed in economic and business decision making.

These measures will help to promote a truly green, circular economy.

The Strategy also elevates climate equity as a central concern, recognizing that low-income and marginalized people are often most exposed and vulnerable to climate risks and the least able to adapt and recover. They are also most at risk to be harmed or disadvantaged by the direct impacts of emissions mitigation actions, or indirectly by the consequences of the transition to a greener economy. Their engagement and leadership is essential to achieve a just transition.

These considerations align well with the goals of the U.S. COVID-19 Response and Recovery Framework, which recognizes the need for ambitious actions to help economies recover in a way that lifts up those who were most hurt, and builds their capacity to be more resilient.

GRIP must be able to help realize this vision across all development sectors, including but not limited to agriculture and food security, health, natural resources management, energy and infrastructure development, and biodiversity conservation. In other words, GRIP is a central mechanism to achieve the climate change integration called for under the Strategy. Actions undertaken by GRIP may have a primary sectoral objective and expected results (such as enhanced food security, improved maternal and child health, or conserved biodiversity), while seeking adaptation and mitigation co-benefits. In addition, GRIP must encourage collaborations that bring sectors together, guided by systems thinking and analysis.

To ensure that benefits and costs are equitably shared, and that finance or corporate actions do not result in unintended consequences, GRIP must include a strong focus on equitable and inclusive partnerships that prioritize diverse perspectives, including those of Indigenous Peoples, community-based organizations, local governments, and organizations led by and/or directly serving women and youth. GRIP must identify opportunities to expand access to finance and business opportunities by those that are often excluded from traditional climate and development initiatives, while also fostering an enabling environment that provides underrepresented groups with the tools needed to successfully access allocated financing. This work will include consideration of gender, just transition, and energy and climate equity issues. GRIP must work with USAID on ways to enhance inclusion and equity while generating impact at scale, and when possible move beyond funding small discrete pilots to supporting initiatives that can bring systemic or large-scale benefits, recognizing that this may take longer to achieve. A focus on equity does not mean a lack of partnerships with large private entities - indeed, impact at scale requires commitments from economic actors in all levels of the economy.

To achieve the Purpose and the Contract Objectives, GRIP must have global scope, and be able to work in any country, region, or on global topics as directed by USAID. USAID Field Support, to include Mission and Washington Operating Units (OUs), will provide the majority of funding, requiring a demand-driven, customer-oriented, flexible management approach that delivers locally-customized solutions and services, focused whenever possible on implementing through and with local partners. GRIP must use the vision outlined above to frame the conversations about particular activities, helping to shape them so they contribute to those goals in an appropriate manner. The ways that equity and inclusion considerations are married with achieving larger scale impacts will be determined for each intervention, as will the selection of targeted beneficiaries.

Contract Targets

The GRIP contract will aim to achieve the following high-level targets across the entire portfolio:

● $2.5B of non-USG resources mobilized toward climate change outcomes

● Finance mobilized to support the Nationally Determined Contributions or National

Adaptation Plans of at least twenty countries

● 40% of the total number of GRIP subcontracts and GUCs awarded to local entities or new partners1

The GRIP target of $2.5B assumes an overall 1:10 leverage ratio of public to private funds.

Resource leverage for specific activities or partnerships will be determined based on the nature and the purpose of the activity. Some activities (such as those supporting post-COVID recovery) may not meet the leverage ratio but have clear additionality for USAID. These requirements will be determined together with USAID during activity planning. Importantly, many GRIP interventions, such as technical assistance in the clean energy sector or grant capital to mobilize finance, could achieve leverage ratios greater than 1:30. As a general principle, USAID expects GUC recipients to provide cost share or leverage as part of this activity. The level of USAID assistance should be the minimum required so as to maximize potential for long-term viability and self-reliance.

For further details see Section J.4 “Monitoring, Evaluating, Learning, Collaborating and Adapting.”

Contract Objectives

Objective 1: Develop and scale effective partnerships and solutions to achieve transformational change

Under Objective 1, GRIP must work with public and private sector actors to mobilize private resources for actions that stimulate transformational change toward more inclusive, environmentally sustainable economic models. While Objectives 2 and 3 focus on the enabling environment and learning as tools to achieve transformation, Objective 1 centers on resource mobilization toward specific adaptation and mitigation actions, and achieves transformative impacts through innovation, demonstration, and scaling of proven approaches.

Innovation can be transformative when new approaches are developed or when proof of concept for commercialization or private sector implementation is demonstrated, such as piloting new

1 As defined under the New Partnerships Initiative business models with the potential for rapid growth or widespread uptake. Engaging new beneficiaries, particularly those who do not typically access climate finance or benefit from private sector partnerships, can be innovative and thus transformative because it demonstrates how to enhance equity for greater human development impact.

Scaling proven approaches can be transformative because of the level of direct impact of those actions, achieving development and climate outcomes that touch thousands to millions of lives, reduce millions of tons of GHG emissions, or mobilize large levels of climate finance. Where interventions have already shown promise, such as in renewable energy, GRIP must seek greater scale by working with larger private investors and project developers and providers of concessional capital, while de-risking investments with tools like guarantees. When scaling, GRIP must strive to increase local community participation and benefits, including Indigenous Peoples where relevant.

GRIP must apply comprehensive social and environmental safeguards to the initial screening and the oversight of all supported activities. However, GRIP must go further by prioritizing investments that increase inclusion and equity in implementation and benefits. The contractor must develop and systematically apply an investment and partnership screening and prioritization protocol to ensure USAID additionality, and work with potential partners to enhance the equity and inclusion of their efforts.

The types of potential interventions are diverse and GRIP must bring a range of partners to implement and co-design activities. Illustrative interventions include: providing or mobilizing catalytic capital, seed grants, blended finance such as grant capital and lending incentives, finance and partnerships for nature based solutions; “recovery grants” for green businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic; technical assistance for the design of investment funds or green bonds; partnering with companies to ‘green’ their supply chains, enhance supplier incomes, and promote COVID recovery; increasing lending for adaptation in smallholder agriculture; facilitating direct co-investment opportunities; working with insurance providers to expand climate risk or index insurance products; and increasing the pipeline of bankable projects through project preparation activities, aggregation of smaller projects, or seed funding.

The Contractor must, as part of its core activities under Objective 1, deliver the following:

● Build a portfolio of partnerships to support urban, rural, and coastal climate resilience investments that engage and benefit women, youth, and marginalized communities.

● Build a portfolio of partnerships to mobilize carbon finance to improve livelihoods of small-holder farmers, pastoral communities, and indigenous communities, with particular emphasis on gender inclusion and equity.

● Develop and implement models to attract private capital for natural climate solutions, climate resilience, renewable energy, sustainable transportation, clean water, and biodiversity conservation.

Objective 1 Expected Results:

● Increased number of people supported by the USG to adapt to the effects of climate change

● Increased number of people using climate information or implementing risk-reducing actions to improve resilience to climate change

● Increased number of hectares under improved management expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase sequestration

● Increased number of hectares of biologically significant areas showing improved biophysical conditions

● Greater clean energy generation capacity, defined as having achieved financial closure

● Increased reduction, sequestration or avoidance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimated in metric tons of CO2 equivalent

● Increased reduction, sequestration or avoidance of projected GHG emissions as a result of adopted laws, policies, regulations, or technologies

● Greater number of people receiving health and/or livelihoods co-benefits associated with environmental conservation and/or the implementation of climate change activities

● More new technologies developed and/or scaled

● More FTE equivalent jobs created or maintained

● Increased equity and inclusion in terms of access, benefit sharing, partnerships, meaningful participation, economic opportunity, and leadership for women, youth, persons living with disabilities, LGBTQI+, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities and populations

Objective 2: Foster an inclusive enabling environment to build shared vision and accelerate collective action

Under this Objective, GRIP will improve the enabling environment for mobilizing climate finance and private sector climate actions while assisting recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. GRIP will contribute to this objective in multiple ways, including network strengthening, capacity building of key government and other institutions and private sector actors, and engagement for policy and regulatory reforms and implementation.

GRIP will build and strengthen networks and relationships among the various actors, including financial sector actors, service providers, private sector firms, and intermediaries; as well as non-financial actors including local governments, NGOs, women and youth entrepreneur networks, Indigenous Peoples and civil society organizations. The intent is to expand opportunities for private sector investors to connect with companies, entrepreneurs or local actors who wish to develop businesses or scale up interventions in areas that bring climate and recovery benefits.

These actors need a supportive ecosystem that will facilitate creation of shared vision and collective action at different scales - local, national, regional, and global.

GRIP will contribute to the success of partnerships created under Objective 1 by building the capacity of local private sector actors and public agencies to create and manage investable opportunities, such as the management of renewable energy auctions, or to provide supportive services. GRIP will also strengthen financial institutions and investor capacities to lend or invest in these new opportunities, including how to make their investments more inclusive of typically under-served populations. GRIP will also work with government regulators, policy makers, or analysts to help them better understand how they can stimulate the transition to these new market opportunities.

Finally, GRIP will engage in a variety of efforts to improve the policy environment in support of private finance and corporate actions for equitable climate impacts and COVID recovery. This may include supporting advocacy networks for policy reforms. Examples include the formulation, adaptation or application of technical or financial standards appropriate to national and international contexts, such as carbon equivalence standards or corporate/industry disclosure requirements; helping countries increase the transparency and standardization of their carbon market; supporting the introduction of new financial products (e.g. green bonds) to support climate action; enhancing policies to stimulate private investment in climate-friendly development solutions; and clarifying and strengthening the land and resource rights that are critical for equitable and sustainable investment.

The Contractor must, as part of its core activities under Objective 2, deliver the following:

● Build a global climate finance and investor network and through this network conduct stock-taking of opportunities and needs, and strengthen action-oriented alliances.

● Enhance capacity of the private sector (finance, investment, corporate) to make their investments more inclusive of under-served communities. Implement the program with those who agree to be accountable for achieving increased inclusion and equity.

● Identify, evaluate and promote opportunities for USAID to scale sustainability standards in the commercial financial sector for lending in the agriculture and forestry sectors.

Objective 2 Expected Results:

● Increased number of institutions with improved capacity to address climate change issues and to leverage innovative financing approaches

● Increased number of laws, policies, regulations, or standards addressing conservation and/or climate change formally proposed, adopted, or implemented

● Increased equity and inclusion in terms of access, resource rights, benefit sharing, partnerships, meaningful participation, economic opportunity, and leadership for women, youth, persons living with disabilities, LGBTQI+, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities and populations

Objective 3: Advance learning and development community capacity to mobilize catalytic private sector partnerships and finance

Under this Objective, GRIP must build the capacity of USAID and the development community to sustain action on economic recovery and climate finance. To guide and support that work, GRIP must develop, with USAID engagement and approval, a learning agenda, including learning questions. The learning agenda will frame efforts that extend systematically across the entire period of performance of GRIP, while also being flexible to respond to emerging trends and needs.

The learning agenda must have a strong participatory component so it engages both private sector actors, as well as often excluded or marginalized groups, in determining learning priorities and disseminating and sharing results. GRIP must work with networks of climate finance partners to contribute to knowledge-sharing and transfer, and produce and disseminate best practices and lessons learned. GRIP may support existing knowledge and learning networks or help create new ones as needed to fill gaps, including at the regional or national level.

An important area of work must be documenting and evaluating innovations in the climate space, such as efforts to monetize soil carbon sequestration, harness the potential of “blue carbon” in oceans and coastal ecosystems, and promote scaling of new technologies. This would include better understanding what does/does not work to promote effective and efficient participation (and benefit sharing) of local peoples and communities in innovative practices and approaches.

GRIP will promote learning through monitoring and evaluation of GRIP-supported activities, assessments of private sector partnership development or private finance approaches, impact evaluations, and evidence summits or learning events. GRIP may also undertake technical, financial, economic, and sociocultural analyses and develop and apply tools and resources.

GRIP may work with USAID mission staff and industry stakeholders, such as business associations, to build their capacity to develop and expand access to finance and stimulate public-private partnerships. The GRIP contractor must deploy innovative approaches to deliver information to key stakeholders in a timely manner that aligns with their needs, and to encourage active engagement and dialogue around knowledge products.

GRIP must also generate and share, with lessons learned from GRIP’s own efforts, to inform the global practice of financing climate resilient development, or to replicate and scale-up GRIP activities to increase sustainability. Unless otherwise directed by USAID, rather than developing its own standalone website, GRIP should establish a project website on ClimateLinks (or other suitable platform as directed by USAID) and must contribute content on other USAID-supported online platforms for greater reach and sustainability of access to learning beyond the lifetime of the contract.

The Contractor must, as part of its core activities under Objective 3, deliver the following:

● Develop and implement a Learning Agenda on mobilizing climate finance and private sector actions to address climate change.

Objective 3: Expected Results:

● Increased learning generated and widely disseminated on climate change and conservation finance, and private sector partnerships, including how to increase inclusion and equity

● Greater awareness of internal and external audiences about USAID’s contributions to climate finance and partnerships for climate action

J.3.2 Guiding Principles

The Contractor must ensure that the following principles and priorities are integrated throughout GRIP’s technical and management processes.

Inclusive Development: GRIP will embed the ethos of inclusive development throughout its work. Whether building on prior women’s economic empowerment theory and evidence or engaging youth or persons with disabilities in meaningful and creative ways, the technical products will integrate inclusive development. In addition, GRIP operations and methods should incorporate the capacity and tools to identify and address the factors that underlie marginalization and inequities. USAID recognizes that sometimes this means direct engagement with marginalized groups, but other times inclusion and equity impacts may be created indirectly, with care to monitor actual results. USAID takes a broad view to diversity and inclusion and specific groups of interest can and should vary and intersect depending on context, including the extreme poor, women, youth, people with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQIA+ persons (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex)2, widows and orphans, and other marginalized groups. The contractor must ensure sufficient staff expertise and level of effort to implement this principle, and conduct a robust Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) analysis early in the process to inform the Work Plan and AMELP.

Just Transition - The principle of market orientation and economic recovery means that climate mitigation and adaptation will also address economic resilience in the short and long terms.

USAID interventions will target market failures, removing barriers to private investment in mitigation and adaptation for a level playing field, and targeting subsidies to make green transitions fiscally sustainable for low-income governments, commercially viable for struggling firms, and economically feasible for informal workers and workers displaced by the transition to a net-zero economy. Consideration should be made for how to enable a just transition by removing rather than exacerbating existing inequities.

Private sector driven - Businesses and investors are best placed to identify opportunities and the support they require to execute them. The contract must prioritize tailored solutions designed to meet needs of specific transactions or market opportunities the private sector identifies and in which they are willing to invest their own resources to advance. As such, not only will the needs of businesses and investors be a central driver for shaping GRIP work plans and activities, but private sector analysis, expertise and resources must inform the mechanism’s programming.

Businesses, to the greatest extent possible, must share risk with USAID, co-invest in programming and be the primary implementers of the work. This is central to GRIP’s approach to ensure long-term sustainability and the self-reliance of markets. Utilizing local and regional intermediary firms for implementation will help ensure that quality and competitive services remain in local economies once GRIP support ends.

New, non-traditional, and local partners - GRIP must work through local actors and systems and engage our traditional partners in strengthening local capacity. GRIP must capitalize on the full marketplace of ideas and evidence-based solutions by collaborating with partners from all sectors of society, and pursue partnerships with organizations that can leverage other funding to scale their programs and achieve even greater development outcomes. GRIP must institute accountability and feedback mechanisms to obtain local partner and local community inputs.

J.4 MONITORING, EVALUATING, COLLABORATING, LEARNING AND

ADAPTING

2 When working for the inclusion of LBGTQI persons, the concept of ‘Do No Harm’ is critical to their safety. See USAID LBGT Vision for Action, p. 8 for more.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1874/LGBT_Vision.pdf

The Contractor must combine Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) approaches with Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approaches into a synergistic Monitoring, Evaluating, Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Plan (MECLAP). This recognizes the synergies between annual monitoring, periodic evaluating, iterative learning and adaptation, and the centrality of collaboration to all those pursuits.

Measuring progress toward Contract Targets and Expected Results

The MEL aspects will center around measuring progress toward the Contract Targets and the three Contract Objectives using both technical performance metrics and operational metrics to monitor progress and implementation.

The Contractor must propose indicators, including USAID’s standard indicators as applicable, for USAID approval, and comply with USAID indicator definitions and measurement guidance as they are refined. The Contractor and USAID will agree on annual and life-of-contract indicator targets, revised as needed in response to buy-ins and other factors. In setting targets and managing performance, the Contractor must work with USAID to find an appropriate balance between achieving high financial leverage ratios, ensuring meaningful additionality of private sector contributions, and the imperative of achieving development results on the ground.

In addition to quantitative indicators, USAID encourages innovative and qualitative approaches to monitoring and evaluating activity achievements and lessons learned.

Some activities (such as conducting a market assessment) will not directly contribute to the high level outcomes, but rather contribute toward their subsequent achievement by others. These interventions are also very important to USAID. The contractor must propose measures that capture these essential, but early stage, outputs and demonstrate how they are logically supportive of those higher impacts.

Because GRIP can program in different sectors, it will receive funds with particular monitoring and reporting requirements, such as those associated with Feed the Future, microenterprise, global health, etc. In those situations, USAID will direct the contractor on compliance with the relevant indicator and reporting requirements. Buy-ins may have additional indicators and targets as appropriate to their tasks.

GRIP must often work collaboratively with other USAID Implementing Partners, other donors and their partners, host governments, and multilateral organizations to achieve desired outcomes.

As such, GRIP can count and report results on indicators and outcomes on a “contribution” basis when other organizations are also contributing to those outcomes and may be reporting the same or similar results. GRIP must report to USAID when it suspects this is occurring so that USAID can avoid double counting when aggregating to a higher level. The GRIP contractor must propose options for how to address these types of situations.

Inclusion and equity: GRIP must contribute to outcomes on inclusion and equity. Measuring meaningful impacts is challenging because simply counting the number of a particular category of person benefitting (such as percentage of women) often does not adequately represent the desired economic and social changes, such as influence on decision making and structural reforms. A small improvement in a quantitative sense could represent a major qualitative achievement. The GRIP Monitoring, Evaluating, Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Plan (MECLAP) must include an approach to identify and measure equity and inclusion results across its portfolio that includes, but goes beyond, typical “participation” indicators. The Contractor must report sex-disaggregated results for all relevant indicators.

Operational MEL

In addition to indicators and expected results for technical outcomes, the MECLAP must establish operational measures to track management performance, including efficiency and responsiveness to USAID and potential partners. The contractor must propose and then track measures of timeliness of performance, including negotiating and implementing Field Support, soliciting and awarding subcontracts and GUCs, and completion and delivery of subcontracts and GUCs. Indicators to measure progress on inclusive partnerships under the required Inclusive Development Partnering Strategy must also be included in the Operational MEL system. Semi-annual reporting must track those indicators to identify where management is meeting its goals and where adjustments are required.

The Contractor must also report semi-annually its estimated Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from contract management during the reporting period and significant emissions sources (e.g., air travel, shipping, energy consumption). The contractor’s calculation of GHG emissions must be based on a recognized methodology that provides a reasonable estimate of emissions. The contractor’s first report incorporating this information shall describe the contractor’s methodology for calculating emissions, which shall be used consistently on all future reports, unless a revised methodology is disclosed to USAID and the COR approves the use of the revised methodology. Each annual report must include any activities the Contractor undertook during the reporting period to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from performance of the contract, and emissions reductions against previous years levels. These may be reported in terms of emissions intensity to take into account increased levels of contract activities.

Communications Plan

The MECLAP must include a Communications Plan that responds to USAID internal communications and reporting needs, as well as those for external audiences. All communications must conform to a USAID-approved Branding and Marking Plan. The GRIP team must develop a system to track and aggregate the measurable results across all its activities, including buy-ins, in order to tell a persuasive story of USAID impacts. The MECLAP will not include development of an Agency-wide reporting or data management system on climate finance and climate partnerships. However, as a separate activity under Objective 3, USAID could request assistance in setting up an Agency-wide system, or develop guidance and tools to support Agency reporting. The Contractor, unless directed by USAID, must not set up a new stand-alone website, but rather integrate its products and presence into existing web platforms.

The Contractor must comply with USAID requirements for GIS data collection and sharing with USAID, and use that data in support of monitoring, reporting, learning, and results dissemination.

Collaborating, Learning and Adapting

As explained under Objective 3, the contractor must develop a learning agenda, including learning questions, that covers the entire contract period while being responsive to new learning tasks or questions as they emerge during implementation. In this way, the learning approach must be adaptive. The contractor may conduct evaluations of specific buy-ins or activities as proposed in the MECLAP and/or as directed by USAID. If USAID initiates a 3rd party evaluation of GRIP or of a GRIP-supported activity, the contractor must be responsive to related requests for information or assistance.

The Contractor must build on its MEL approach with the application of Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA) within its day-to-day work and operations. There are specific known activities for collaboration on technical work (e.g., Advancing Women’s Empowerment Program3, AGENT) as well as to support dissemination of learning (e.g., Climatelinks, Agrilinks, Marketlinks, BEAM Exchange, GBV-ENV Center). Over time specific collaborators may change. Learning foci might shift as new priorities emerge. GRIP needs to be well connected to find opportunities within the development community and flexible to engage in a variety of ways and in different areas as needed. Further, USAID anticipates a close, collaborative working style between the GRIP team and USAID activity managers.

An Adaptive MECLAP

The MECLAP will be reviewed, updated, and expanded each year to take into account buy-ins and other programmatic adjustments. The MECLAP must be prepared by the contractor consistent with requirements in this section and in Section F: Deliverables. The Contractor must coordinate with the COR and activity managers prior to drafting the MECLAP. If revisions are necessary or desirable within a fiscal year, the Contractor must report any suggested significant changes or revisions to the USAID COR and activity managers and must obtain the USAID COR’s approval prior to implementing or undertaking such changes or revisions. The MECLAP should not be submitted to USAID’s DEC.

J.5 MANAGEMENT AND STAFFING

J.5.1 Management approach

Flexible, efficient staffing

USAID wishes to minimize management overhead and maximize the proportion of funding to direct implementation of activities. In addition, USAID expects that a significant portion of GRIP will be funded through buy-ins from USAID Operating Units (Washington and Field Missions) which will ebb and flow depending on demand. Finally, USAID wishes to maximize the use of local and regional organizations in implementing GRIP. Therefore, in the event the Contractor is not a local entity, the Contractor should have a lean implementation team that

3Advancing Women’s Empowerment Program: https://www.agrilinks.org/activities/awe#tab-1-1 provides a core set of services and relies extensively on subcontracts, grants under contract (GUC) and other partnership arrangements with local entities to execute programming.

Inclusive Development in Partnering and Management

USAID is committed to advancing principles of diversity of thought and experience through the GRIP contract. USAID places a high priority on partnering with minority- and women-owned/ operated organizations. In addition to the required small-business subcontracting plan (see section L.9), the Contractor must, in its Inclusive Development Partnering Strategy, propose a comprehensive approach to achieve diversity and inclusion in its selection of partner organizations (See Section F.6). This strategy may include the use of co-creation processes and of performance- or milestone-based contracts and agreements. With regard to diversity of thought leadership and expertise, the Contractor must, where feasible, consider innovative approaches to promote these objectives and address ways it will facilitate the inclusion of diverse perspectives in the Inclusive Development Partnering Strategy.

J.5.2 Relationships with Other Activities and Partners

Partnerships are at the heart of GRIP, so the Contractor must develop a systematic approach to collaboration and coordination in support of the achievement of GRIP outcomes. Essential features of collaboration include development of written agreements (such as MOUs and joint action plans) where helpful, transparency and information sharing between GRIP and other partners, establishment of joint goals and outcomes, and the use of co-creation approaches.

These requirements must roll down to sub-contracts and grants under contracts as relevant to their scopes.

GRIP must engage with a wide variety of partners and programs in order to achieve maximum impact and efficiency. At global and regional levels, USAID has funded a number of important programs, many of which are listed in Annex 1. At the national level, USAID initiatives to improve the legal and regulatory environment to attract greater private investment have often been highly important. GRIP will need to assess this list, modify it to ensure comprehensiveness, and develop collaborative agreements and approaches where needed to address USAID requirements for specific interventions under GRIP. At the country level, the USG has a variety of coordination fora, such as Deal Teams, Feed the Future interagency teams, and other approaches to achieve whole of government impacts. As directed by USAID, GRIP can engage directly, or support improved coordination, with those structures. In addition, there are many other potential programs and partners as outlined below:

USAID Missions and Washington Operating Units (OUs) develop and manage programs that can have strong linkages to GRIP programs and outcomes. It will be important for GRIP to work closely with USAID and the relevant implementing partners to minimize duplication and maximize synergies (see Annex 1 below). GRIP activities, if funded by an OU buy-in, will likely need to meet other complementary specific objectives, outputs and reporting requirements in addition to those specified in the GRIP program. Partnerships, touchpoints, and collaborations will be specified in buy-ins as needed. The USAID COR, along with assistance from activity managers will help structure buy-ins so they are consistent with GRIP mandates and customized to field requirements. In addition, GRIP must engage with USAID OUs on its global learning agenda in a manner that is sensitive to their needs and circumstances.

Partner governments, regional institutions, and local and regional private sectors will be very important to GRIP, most likely in terms of specific tasks and programs. When engaging with partner governments, multilateral development banks, the IMF, and regional institutions, GRIP will need to coordinate with relevant USAID representatives. Engagement with the local and regional private sector will need to be coordinated with other USAID implementing partners and USAID field missions.

The USAID Finance and Investment Network, initiated and managed by USAID’s INVEST program, will be a potential resource and forum for GRIP to engage with relevant finance, investment, and corporate entities. GRIP will need to help connect new organizations into that network as they are identified and might collaborate with the INVEST team on events using the Network.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is a central partner for GRIP, particularly in the mobilization of private finance. With USAID guidance, GRIP will need to engage DFC early on any deals that might benefit from DFC guarantees or lending facilities.

GRIP implementation is not dependent on DFC programming, however DFC tools can magnify the impact of GRIP when they are appropriate and complementary. For example, GRIP can mobilize private finance by providing grant capital to lower risk and technical assistance to improve borrower capacity. A complementary DFC guarantee, or complementary DFC equity investment, while not required, would leverage additional resources, increasing the overall leverage ratio and possibly allow the participation of institutional investors. GRIP may also support the DFC pipeline of projects, providing technical assistance to organizations to build their capacity. USAID and the DFC may identify other ways to collaborate that involve GRIP.

The U.S. State Department is active on climate change mitigation and adaptation across the globe including in countries where GRIP is expected to work. Key offices include the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) which leads on international climate policy for the USG and also funds a portfolio of programs,…