BAA_Announcement_Dec_22_2017_Rev6_(Final).pdf

U.S. Agency for International Development

American Embassy

Chanakyapuri

New Delhi 110 021

Tel: 91-11-24198000

Fax: 91-11-24198612 / 8454 www.usaid.gov/in

ISSUANCE DATE: December 22, 2017

OPEN PERIOD: December 22, 2017– January 31, 2018 (5:00 PM IST)

THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR

GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY STRATEGY (GFSS) INDIA – AG TECH CHALLENGE

I. OVERVIEW

A. Introduction

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is issuing this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to seek participants to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate on research and development interventions to address development challenges for food and nutrition security in Asia1. USAID invites organizations and companies to submit an Expression of Interest, as provided below.

The intent of the BAA is to allow co-creation and co-design to the maximum extent to create high quality, effective partnerships with great efficiency in time and resources. USAID will invite selected for-profit and non-profit, public and private organizations, as detailed below, to co-create Research and Development (R&D) solutions to the Problem and Challenge Statements stated in this BAA, including those organizations that have ideas, expertise, resources, and/or funding to add to potential solutions.

Co-Investing: USAID wants to align goals with the partners under this BAA, to facilitate shared responsibility, shared risk, and shared resourcing. Shared resourcing requires that cash and other resources, both tangible and intangible, such as in-kind contributions, expertise, intellectual property, brand value, high-value coordination, and access to key people, places, and information, are directed towards reaching the solution to the Problem/Challenge. Co-investing does not require equal shared resources (such as 1:1 leverage), but rather resource contributions that are appropriate to the specific project’s objectives, considering the comparative advantages brought by the participation of each party.

1 Eligible Asian countries include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Timor Leste and Vietnam.

B. Federal Agency Name

The United States Agency for International Development, administered through the India Mission.

C. Opportunity Title

Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) India – Ag Tech Challenge Broad Agency Announcement

(BAA)

D. Opportunity Number

BAA-ROAA-GFSS-2018

E. Authority

This BAA is issued under Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 35.016 (c). This is not a FAR Part 15 Procurement.

F. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number

98.001 USAID Foreign Assistance Programs for Overseas

G. Webinar Schedule

The Mission plans to hold a webinar on January 10, 2018 from10:00 am – 12:00 pm IST.

Information for accessing the webinar will be posted at Fedbiz.gov and Grants.gov on January 2, 2018.

H. Closing Date and time for submittal of Questions

January 17, 2018 at 5:00 PM IST

I. Closing Date and time for submittal of Expressions of Interest (EOIs)

January 31, 2018 at 5:00 PM IST

II. Problem and Challenge Statements

PROBLEM:

In recent decades, Asia's tremendous economic growth has lifted millions of people out of poverty, malnutrition, and disease at rates unprecedented in human history. Yet, Asia's growth model relies heavily on an unsustainable use of resources and has created growing inequalities that undermine the region's future economic growth and can threaten countries' stability. In addition, weak institutional frameworks and inequitable services for vulnerable populations across the region mean that many people do not participate fully in Asia's growth.

Specific challenges include:

Vulnerability of Natural Resources: Asia's growth in gross domestic product and consumption has come at great cost to the region's natural resources, the global climate, and ultimately the region's ability to sustain broad-based development over the long term. Unplanned urban development and the expansion of cities and towns puts further pressure on resources and the communities that use them. The degradation of land, water, and other natural resources undermines long term sustainable economic growth, food security, and water availability, as well as increases the risk of public health threats and disasters. In addition, global climate change will continue to strain the resiliency of vulnerable communities throughout the region.

Inclusive Economic Growth: As Asia grows in population and economically, increasing disparities pose critical challenges to the region's inclusive and sustainable development.

Income disparities within individual countries continue to widen throughout the region, which can dampen the poverty reducing impacts of economic growth. Asia's Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality increased dramatically from 39 to 46 in less than 20 years, resulting in the conclusion that "Asia is getting less poor, but more unequal."

As many Asian nations transition from largely rural economies, the importance of strong rural-urban linkages becomes pivotal in order to ensure connectivity between farmers and businesses in the rural community and the growing urban population in not just primary, but also secondary and tertiary cities. Efficient market systems and integration into global agricultural value chains are vital for the economic health of many Asian countries.

As drivers of economic growth and innovation, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) often lack access to critical finance and other technical support needed to operate their businesses as well as to grow and expand their market. The lack of regional connectivity and trade barriers between countries also severely limit MSMEs' growth potential and continue to plague the economic potential of South, Central, and Southeast Asia.

Malnutrition rates are alarming in most Asian countries. Over 70% of all malnourished children in the world live in Asia. About 512 million adults and children in Asia consume too few calories, which accounts for over 12% of the total population of Asia. The Subcontinent of Asia, including India and Bangladesh, has the highest rates (16%) of malnutrition and the most numbers of the hungry in Asia. In Asia, 17% of females and 13% of males are underweight on average (Body Mass Index (BMI) <18.5). Typical socio-cultural-economic conditions that exist in Asian countries result in these problems.

Finally, empowering often neglected groups to fully participate in economic and financial systems remain a significant challenge in Asia. In particular, women, youth, and ethnic and religious minorities frequently cannot access financing and employment in certain industries due to onerous legal, regulatory, and cultural barriers. Without inclusive economic growth for all, poverty and inequality will continue to restrict the economic potential of Asia, which still houses over 770 million people living on below $1.25 per day.

Opportunities:

Despite these challenges, a number of these aspects can be leveraged to increase the region's focus on sustainable growth and development. Asia's strong economic growth, with an active and engaged private sector both local and multinational corporations, including small and medium enterprises, can be a positive force for reducing poverty and creating sustainable change.

Globally, Asia remains extremely strong in industries such as agriculture and manufacturing.

There is local expertise and innovation in areas crucial to sustainable development, such as supply chain, natural resource management, and human capital.

Asia has an increasing number of high net worth individuals who are responding to the global call for social investment and who can serve as a potential resource for growth. Asia is rich in technology, innovation, and capital (both human and financial). It has the highest number of researchers and internet users worldwide, and offers platforms for innovation to help the many poor within its borders. Expanding access to information technologies can spur innovation and growth and enhance public service delivery. These technologies can also be harnessed to tackle unsustainable practices that undermine long-term prosperity for Asia and tap into burgeoning human and financial capital.

Since 2010, the USAID/India Food Security Office (FSO) has carried out the vision outlined for Feed the Future (FTF) strategic partnerships – deepening U.S. relationships with non-traditional donors and scaling up efforts to produce lasting change in global food and nutrition security. As a strategic partner under FTF, the trilateral engagement to date has focused on three key areas –

1) Indian agricultural innovation transfer; 2) human and institutional capacity development, and

3) research and development. The office launched the first generation of innovation transfer and capacity development partnerships in early 2013 focusing on Kenya and Malawi in Africa and

Nepal and Bangladesh in Asia. Of the programs launched through the India--Africa Agricultural Innovation Bridge, the U.S.--India--Africa Triangular Training Programs and more recently through the India Partnership APS, some activities have met their targets, others are on the way to meeting them, while a few have struggled to demonstrate results and receive buy-in from bilateral missions. Some activities resulted in sustainable private sector engagement in the region and have paved the way to scalable solutions.

The FSO Office is building upon the lessons learned from prior activities and piloting best practices from other missions to study and maximize to the extent possible the development impact, gathering information that will ensure sustainability in the next round of activities. This concept note takes into account the opportunities and challenges in scaling pilots of agriculture technology transfer to a second country.

The Asia Bureau, Bureau for Food Security (BFS), and USAID/India seek a new way forward to build sustainability in the food security portfolio, building on opportunities to co-create, co-design, co-invest and collaborate with the private sector, and other interested stakeholders in supporting USAID missions in the Asia region. The greater objective is to find business models that can demonstrate agriculture technology scale and growth within South, Southeast and Central Asia. Research on the potential to expand and learn from Indian innovations in Nepal, Bangladesh and Cambodia is great, but so is the potential to build a network of growing entrepreneurs in the region with access to capital, technical knowledge, and resources. This activity will build on prior technology transfer programs to develop a strong environment for a cross-fertilization of ideas between countries.

USAID/India’s food security portfolio is focused on strengthening existing partnerships and building new partnerships to co-create, co-design, co-invest and collaborate in research on Agricultural value chain development outcomes in select FTF and aligned focus countries in Asia. Empirical evidence from evaluations shows that including the target country and private sector stakeholders in the design process is critical to the success of the innovation transfer and scale-up interventions. Similarly, innovative approaches that ensure last mile market development designed to benefit smallholders including entrepreneurs with a clear financial benefit are more likely to be successful than those which do not have a market potential.

Following this approach will result in a more strategic focus for the technology transfer program in order to

a) maximize the development impact,

b) ensure sustainability,

c) encourage more efficient deployment of limited resources, and

d) reduce the management burden

Target Sectors:

• Seeds and Fertilizers: Farmers in neighboring countries to India are fortunate to have access to a large and steady flow of new varieties of field crops and vegetables from public and private breeding in India. Similarly, India and its neighboring countries rely on imports of most fertilizer products. Partly as a result of this, public policy at a national and regional level plays a critical role in determining the type, the source, the rate and the timing of fertilizer products. Each of the countries in the region suffers from some level of distortions, causing an overuse of nitrogenous fertilizers, and a regional trend towards harmful soil imbalances. India, on the other hand is experimenting and to an extent successful on liquid fertilizers, urea deep placement, bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers and other innovations that could offer a huge opportunity to the neighboring countries.

• Fisheries and feed technologies: Development of inland fisheries and fish feed technologies has the potential to improve livelihoods and malnutrition status in India and several other countries in South/South East Asia. The Blue Revolution in India has enhanced fisheries production through investments in research and development, both for small-holder farmers and private sector entrepreneurs. In view of the large number of perennial and seasonal ponds, rivers systems, reservoirs, and canals that can be tapped to diversify inland fisheries; development of aquaculture value chains can contribute to food security and enhance resilience in the target countries. Aquaculture activities will focus on improving pond productivity by using good quality fish feed and innovative feeding practices which can increase yield fairly dramatically and improve nutrition. There is a greater potential to enter into partnerships with the private sector.

• Nutrition-sensitive agriculture/aquaculture: Nutrition sensitive-agriculture/ aquaculture will be an important research and development activity to address in Asian countries where stunting and wasting rates among the population have reached dramatic levels. Innovative approaches that worked in India could be applied in the target countries. Opportunities will be sought to further scale up the adoption of improved technologies and farming practices including nutrition sensitive agriculture/ aquaculture.

• Post-harvest processing and cold storage technologies: Recent regional economic growth in Asia and changes in dietary patterns have made both the production and consumption of fruit, vegetables, and dairy products increasingly important. However, huge post-harvest losses result in diminished returns for producers since post-harvest management determines food quality and safety, competitiveness in the market, and the profits earned by producers. The major constraints include inefficient handling and transportation; poor technologies for storage, processing, and packaging; involvement of too many diverse actors; and poor infrastructure. Considerable opportunity exists for sharing Indian experience and expertise in processing in rural areas across the region, low-cost cold storage, labelling and processing technologies and best practices in organized production-processing linkages. Partnerships among these entities could greatly enhance their operations and help in regional trade hubs for horticultural and dairy products.

• Precision agriculture and sustainable agriculture technologies: Rapid changes in the socio-economic conditions of countries in Asia are creating opportunities for application of precision agriculture and sustainable agriculture technologies such as micro-irrigation, soil test based nutrient management and integrated pest management. Unlike the high-tech nature of precision agriculture technologies developed in advanced countries, Indian private companies and public sector organizations developed and promoted low-cost and low-tech innovations in irrigation management, soil nutrient management and integrated pest management technologies and approaches. These are easily replicable among small-holder farmers in the other countries of Asia region. Wide-scale application of these technologies will not only improve agriculture production by small-holder farmers but reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture. Judicious use of rapidly depleting water resources will help in achieving ecological benefits.

• Small-holder mechanization and finance: Farm mechanization and finance is an area of strong interest to modernize and intensify agricultural production systems and increase market linkages in the Asia region. Improvements in India since the 1960s can be attributed to availability of low-cost, durable and easy-to-operate farm machinery and affordable financing.

• Business process innovations: Process innovations in agricultural and agri-business focus on building an adaptive business process management system (BPMS). These process innovations include integrating new production methods and digital technologies that lead to improved efficiency, quality, or time-to-market. There is ample scope for sharing Indian expertise and experiences in business process innovations in agri-businesses particularly as these companies identify and test markets, modify production methods/ quality aspects and develop marketing partnerships. The cross-border learning could assist with business plans and prospectuses to use in seeking investment partnerships, help commercial companies with proven technologies with assistance to enter into new geographic markets, or to adapt a technology for farmer use.

• Livestock and dairy production: Several GFSS countries have designated livestock production activity as one of the key pillars of the overall program. Over the years, India has demonstrated outstanding advancements in the dairy sector, making it the number one world producer of milk and beef meat. The dairy industry is exclusively led by a pro-active private sector. Thus, India possesses tested innovations, including new technologies, approaches, processes, distribution methods, creative uses of existing technology that could be shared with countries interested in addressing dairy and livestock development challenges. The Indian dairy industry provided millions of farmers with the opportunity to enter the business of producing milk for human consumption, making them confident in the safety and quality of the milk they produce. For many farmers, milk production became a reliable cash crop that lifted them from poverty, and in most cases improved household nutrition needs. Good dairy farming practice underpins the production of milk that satisfies the highest expectations of the food industry and consumers while at the same time ensures that milk is produced by healthy animals in a manner that is sustainable and responsible from the animal welfare, social, economic, and environmental perspectives. Implementing good dairy and meat farming practice is good risk management for the short and long term future of the dairy/meat farming enterprise and thus, appropriate Indian technologies and approaches could unlock the obstacles faced by many countries in Asia in improving their dairy and meat industries.

CHALLENGE:

To develop and test innovative solutions that will accelerate progress towards achieving food and nutrition security in Asia in the target sectors described above.

The overall objective of the GFSS/India- Ag-Tech Challenge BAA is to test, develop, and scale-up solutions that will improve agriculture productivity and competitiveness across the countries in Asia by expanding access to transformational technologies and best practices for smallholder farmers and agribusinesses. The program would seek to partner with companies with 1) the capacity to scale proven solutions; 2) the capacity to leverage USAID funding; and 3) shared values in GFSS Asia development objectives. Flexibility in modifying the activity based on country context, alignment with host-country and USAID Mission development objectives and other donor activities is key to the success of the innovation transfer process. The activity seeks to develop approaches that are scalable and replicable.

1. Private-sector-driven and commercially viable development solutions. Initial results from the technology transfer activities indicate that early stage start-up enterprises have challenges entering international markets due to regulatory barriers and high management burden. In order to address these issues and maximize impact, this activity seeks solutions that will adopt a more demand-driven, private sector-led approach with a focus on growth enterprises with proven commercially viable technologies and business models to enter GFSS countries. These companies should demonstrate analysis and capability for expansion into these markets with limited ‘hand--holding’ or technical assistance.

2. Promising Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) Solutions. We also recognize that there is an inherent value in supporting promising technologies that may not be commercially viable in the near--term but have the potential to address the most pressing development challenges over the medium- to long-term (e.g. Agriculture-Nutrition linkages, climate smart agricultural technologies). We seek solutions for supporting these technologies and their transfer to other countries in the Asia region with the understanding that the initial management burden and transaction costs may be great in the short- to medium- term, to allow them to reach the long-term returns that will show social and commercial impact. These companies are expected to demonstrate market research and analysis for the potential uptake of the proposed solution in another country.

III. The BAA Process

The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the concepts received and the availability of funds from USAID and other resource partners. Some award types may not include any funding. The award process under this BAA has the following steps:

STAGE 1 - SUBMISSION OF EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (EOIs)

All Expressions of Interest should address the criteria below, in the format required in Section VII. EOIs that do not meet the criteria below will not be considered for review. More than one EOI can be submitted.

USAID will review the Expressions of Interest to determine the extent to which each Expression of Interest addresses the criteria/eligibility stated below. Not all organizations that submit an Expression of Interest will be invited to proceed to Stage 2. Due to the number of Expressions of Interest received, USAID is unable to provide details on why Expressions of Interest were not selected.

The USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer will organize 1-2 webinars during the second week of January 2018 to interact with potential applicants and share details about the BAA process.

Information about accessing the webinar will be posted on Fedbiz.gov and Grants.gov during the first week of January 2018.

Questions should be submitted to the USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer by 17:00 IST on January 17, 2018. The USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer will issue responses on Fedbiz.gov and Grants.gov on January 24, 2018.

Criteria for Expressions of Interest:

1. Expressions of Interest must indicate the research or development idea which will work towards discovering potential solutions to the Problem and Challenge Statements, by increasing knowledge and understanding of potential solutions, exploiting scientific discoveries or improvements in technology, materials, processes, methods, devices, or techniques, advancing the state of the art, or using scientific and technical knowledge in the design, development, testing, or evaluation of a potential new product or service (or of an improvement in an existing product or service).

Any awards issued under this solicitation will be for Applied Research or Development, as those terms are defined in 48 USC 35.001, as follows:

“Applied research” means the effort that:

(a) normally follows basic research2, but may not be severable from the related basic research;

2 The primary aim of basic research is a fuller knowledge or understanding of the subject under study, rather than any practical application of that knowledge. (FAR 2.101)

(b) attempts to determine and exploit the potential of scientific discoveries or improvements in technology, materials, processes, methods, devices, or techniques; and

(c) attempts to advance the state of the art. When being used by contractors in cost principle applications, this term does not include efforts whose principal aim is the design, development, or testing of specific items or services to be considered for sale;

these efforts are within the definition of “development,” given below.

“Development” means the systematic use of scientific and technical knowledge in the design, development, testing, or evaluation of a potential new product or service (or of an improvement in an existing product or service) to meet specific performance requirements or objectives. It includes the functions of design engineering, prototyping, and engineering testing; it excludes subcontracted technical effort that is for the sole purpose of developing an additional source for an existing product.

2. Expressions of Interest must demonstrate the potential to have a significant impact (e.g.

breakthroughs, not incremental improvements), that ultimately could achieve that even greater impact at scale.

3. Expressions of Interest must indicate the background and expertise of the organization, and the managerial and technical staff or team engaged in the endeavor.

4. Expressions of Interest must indicate what co-investment resources are available to bear on the solution, including those from the submitting organization and those from other third party businesses, donors, foundations, or other organizations. Such resources include cash and other resources, both tangible and intangible, such as in-kind contributions, expertise, intellectual property, brand value, high-value coordination, and access to key people, places, and information.

5. USAID will also consider the reputation of an organization and its past performance in assessing the ability of the organization to contribute to the co-creation.

The deadline to receive EOIs is January 31, 2018.

STAGE 2 - CO-CREATION AND CO-DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT PAPER

During Stage 2, key stakeholders will Co-Create potential solutions to the Problem/Challenge by brainstorming and innovating solutions and resources, potentially leading to concept papers that USAID or other resource partners will consider for funding.

Co-Creation USAID will review the Expressions of Interest and will select those organizations that USAID determines have addressed the criteria/eligibility stated within the BAA to an extent that the organization will make a significant contribution to the Co-Creation. The Co-Creation will also include USAID and other co-investment organizations that may be able to contribute cash and other resources, both tangible and intangible, such as in-kind contributions, expertise, intellectual property, brand value, high-value coordination, and/or access to key people, places, and information.

Co-Creations may take the form of a workshop, conference, meeting, or other method at the discretion of USAID. For this BAA, the Co-Creation is expected to be a workshop held in New Delhi, India from March 20-22, 2018. The venue will be determined closer to the time and relevant applicants will be informed accordingly. For more information on co-creation and the co-design process, see https://usaidlearninglab.org/library/co-creation-discussion-note-ads-201.

Unless provided otherwise, organizations are responsible for all costs incurred by the organization to participate in the Co-Creation.

Not all organizations that participate in the Co-Creation will be invited to Co-Design and Co- Develop a Concept Paper (Stage 2).

Concept Papers should be submitted to the USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer on May 4, 2018.

Co-Development of Concept Papers Working together, USAID and the potential partner(s) will collaborate on Concept Paper(s), taking a holistic approach to addressing the Problem/Challenge based on learnings from the Co- Creation, and identifying creative approaches to resourcing projects. Such Concept Papers will consider and include additional implementing and co-investment partners to complement the project, including reasonable cost sharing, leverage, or other exchange of resource arrangements.

The Concept Paper, generally 5-10 pages, will further detail and explain the project.

https://usaidlearninglab.org/library/co-creation-discussion-note-ads-201

STAGE 3 - REVIEW BY THE PEER AND SCIENTIFIC REVIEW BOARD

USAID and the organizations connected with each Concept Paper will present the Concept Paper to the Peer and Scientific Review Board, comprised of experts from USAID, partners, and/or outside parties. The Peer and Scientific Review Board will review Concept Papers and recommend which applicants should be considered Apparently Successful Partners. Using its technical expertise, the Peer and Scientific Review Board will recommend whether to move forward with the project, including revisions/additions to the project, and potential partners and resources.

Not all organizations that present a Concept Paper to the Peer and Scientific Review Board will be invited to move to Stage 4.

STAGE 4: AWARD DETERMINATION

USAID will review the Peer and Scientific Review Board’s recommendations and consider other information, such as resource availability and Agency priorities, and will make a determination whether to move forward with the Concept Paper. For Concept Papers that demonstrate a valid innovation to address the Problem/Challenge Statement, the Contracting/Agreement Officer will assess the partner’s responsibility and identify the anticipated instrument type to facilitate project design.

Request for Additional Information. USAID will work with partners identified by the Peer and Scientific Review Board, and co-design the project and assist the partner to provide additional information with respect to the proposer’s technical approach, capacity, management and organization, past performance, and budget, as well as representations and certifications, as needed.

Final Review and Negotiation. The USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer will engage in final review, negotiation, responsibility determinations, cost reasonableness, etc., and will co-develop/craft an award instrument with the Apparently Successful Partner. If the Apparently Successful Partner(s) and USAID cannot arrive at a mutually agreeable arrangement, USAID may cancel the project at no cost to the Government.

Award. Awards under this BAA will be made to the Apparently Successful Partner(s) on the basis of their ability to achieve solutions to the Problems/Challenges, as provided herein. The standard clauses or provisions for awards are generally prescribed by law and regulation and will vary considerably by award type. Information regarding clauses and provisions will be offered to the Apparently Successful Partner(s) when the award type is identified

The USAID Contract/ Agreement Officer anticipate issuing awards on or around May 30, 2018.

IV. Additional Considerations

A. Expressions of Interest are not evaluated against other Expressions of Interest, but solely whether USAID believes that the submitter will be a valuable contributor to the co-creation process. USAID may limit the number of initial submissions selected to move forward based on efficiencies.

B. Concept Papers are not evaluated against other Concept Papers, but solely based on USAID’s determination that the Concept Paper will successfully address the Problem and Challenges set forth herein. USAID may limit the number of Concept Papers selected to move forward based on efficiencies.

C. Decisions regarding USAID’s pursuit of a particular project, technology or relationship are based on all available information, evidence, data, and resulting analysis.

D. Eligibility Information. Public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations, as well as institutions of higher education, public international organizations, non-governmental organizations, U.S. and non-U.S. governmental organizations, multilateral and international donor organizations are eligible under this BAA. All organizations must be determined to be responsive to the BAA and sufficiently responsible to perform or participate in the final award type.

V. Specific Rights Reserved for the Government under this BAA

The Government reserves specific rights, in addition to rights described elsewhere in this document or by law or regulation, including:

A. The right to award multiple awards, a single award, or no awards.

B. The right to make award without discussions, or to conduct discussions and/or negotiations, whichever is determined to be in the Government’s interest.

C. The right to accept proposals in their entirety or to select only portions of proposals for award or co-investment.

D. The right to select for award an instrument type that is appropriate to the specific development context, partner relationship, and proposal selected for award.

Instruments types include, but are not limited to, contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, public-private partnerships, Inter-Agency Agreements, Government to Government Agreements, Donor to Donor Agreements, and Memorandums of Understanding. In addition, the Government may craft a new instrument type to meet the needs of a specific relationship.

E. The right to co-create projects with one or more proposers under the BAA, when it is in the best interest of the Government.

F. The right to request any additional, necessary documentation upon initial review.

Such additional information may include, but is not limited to, a further detailed proposal, budget, and representations and certifications.

G. The right to fund or co-invest in proposals in phases, with options for continued work at the end of one or more of the phases.

H. The right to award instruments under this BAA that do not commit or exchange monetary resources.

I. The right to remove organizations from the BAA process if USAID determines it is no longer in the best interests of the Government to proceed with the organization.

J. The right to conduct a due diligence risk assessment of Apparently Successful

Partners to judge the capacity/capability of the Partner to implement a USAID award.

VI. Information Protection:

USAID’s goal is to facilitate research and development that will lead to innovative, and potentially commercially viable, solutions. Understanding the sensitive nature of submitters’ information, USAID will work with organizations to protect intellectual property.

Expressions of interest should be free of any intellectual property that submitter wishes to protect, as the expressions of interest will be shared with USAID partners as part of the selection process. However, once submitters have been invited to advance beyond co-creation, submitters can work with USAID to identify proprietary information that requires protection.

Therefore, organizations making submissions under this BAA grant to USAID a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable right to use, disclose, reproduce, and prepare derivative works, and to have or permit others to do so to any information contained in the Expressions of Interest submitted under the BAA. If USAID further engages with the organization regarding its submission, the parties can negotiate further intellectual property protection for the organization’s intellectual property.

Organizations must ensure that any submissions under this BAA are free of any third party proprietary data rights that would impact the license granted to USAID herein.

VII. Expression of Interest Information Formatting

Expression of Interest Information should:

A. Be In English, no more than 2 pages in length, and no smaller than 12 point font;

B. Be submitted electronically to indiarco@usaid.gov;

C. Contain a header with the following information (included in the page count):

a. Respondent Name/Group and Contact Information;

b. Response Title;

c. BAA Name/Number;

d. Optional graphic that fits on an 8.5”x11” or A4 piece of paper (included in the page limit);

D. Be in .pdf, .docx, or .odf format mailto:indiarco@usaid.gov