Final Fiscal Year 2022 Request for Applications for a Resilience Food Security Activity.pdf

FY 2022 Bureau of Human Assistance Resilience Food Security Activity in Haiti RFA

Issuance Date: April 26, 2021 Deadline for Questions: May 7, 2021 Closing Date: June 25, 2021 CFDA Number: 98.007 Closing Time: 11:59 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)

Subject: Request for Applications for a Resilience Food Security Activity in Haiti

Title: Fiscal Year 2022 Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance Resilience Food Security Activity in Haiti

Funding Opportunity No.: 720BHA21RFA00002

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is seeking applications for funding for a Resilience Food Security Activity in Haiti.

Private voluntary organizations or cooperatives, including U.S. and non-U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), may apply. Public international organizations are also eligible to apply.

Subject to the availability of funds, under this Request for Applications (RFA)1, BHA plans to make up to the number of awards as described in detail in the Program Description. Please refer to the Program Description for a complete description of possible locations and activities.

USAID reserves the right to use any assistance mechanism available to this agency (e.g., grant, cooperative agreement, leader with associates award) and to adjust the number of awards, funding levels, sources of funding, and/or procedures. The funding source will be Title II Funds.

The applicant’s activity designs inform funding levels, but BHA sets funding levels for successful applicants. BHA will notify successful applicants of any changes or updates, accordingly.

1This RFA is not accompanied by a Country Specific Information (CSI) document. BHA issues CSIs in conjunction with RFAs only when an RFA covers more than one country. This was the case in Fiscal Year 2019 when BHA issued a Development Food Security Activity RFA that covered both Madagascar and Malawi. In that instance, the RFA incorporated two separate CSI documents, one each for Madagascar and Malawi.

Issuance of this RFA does not constitute an award commitment on the part of USAID, nor does it commit the U.S. Government to pay for any costs incurred in the preparation or submission of the comments/suggestions or an application. Applications are submitted at the risk of the applicant. All preparation and submission costs are at the applicant’s expense. This includes the completion of all required documents for USAID awards.

BHA cannot make final awards until funds have been fully appropriated, apportioned, allocated, and committed. While BHA anticipates that these procedures will be successfully completed, BHA hereby notifies potential applicants of these requirements and conditions for award.

For the purposes of this award, the RFA consists of this cover letter and the following:

SECTION I – PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

SECTION II – FEDERAL AWARD INFORMATION

SECTION III – ELIGIBILITY INFORMATION

SECTION IV – APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION

SECTION V – APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION

SECTION VI – FEDERAL AWARD AND ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION

SECTION VII – FEDERAL AWARDING AGENCY CONTACTS

SECTION VIII – OTHER INFORMATION

APPENDIX I: Definitions APPENDIX II: Past Performance Reference Questionnaire APPENDIX III: Refine and Implement APPENDIX IV: Essential Supporting Documents APPENDIX V: Maps of the Resilience Focus Zones, the Northern and Southern Departments of Haiti

To be eligible for the award, the applicant must provide all required information in the application, including the requirements found in any attachments to this opportunity on www.grants.gov. Any future amendments to this RFA can be downloaded from www.grants.gov. This information may also be posted on the BHA website. It is the responsibility of the applicant to use the most up-to-date versions of all of the documents related to this RFA.

USAID may not award to an applicant unless the applicant has complied with all applicable unique entity identifiers and System for Award Management (SAM) requirements detailed in Section IV. The registration process may take many weeks to complete. Therefore, applicants are encouraged to begin registration early in the process.

Please send any questions to the email address identified in Section IV. The deadline for questions is May 7, 2021.

Applicants should refer to the Resilience Activity Application Guidance on the Resilience Activities section of the BHA website, including Technical References and the Monitoring and http://www.grants.gov/ http://www.grants.gov/ https://www.usaid.gov/food-assistance/what-we-do/development-activities https://www.usaid.gov/food-assistance/what-we-do/development-activities https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP_Technical_References_Feb2018.pdf https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00WM4H.pdf http:www.grants.gov http:www.grants.gov

Evaluation Policy, and the BHA Guidance for RFSAs Operating in COVID-19 Affected Operating Contexts.

Per 2 CFR 200 and 2 CFR 700, USAID regulations do not award profit under assistance instruments. However, all reasonable, allocable, and allowable expenses, both direct and indirect, which are related to the agreement activity and which are in accordance with applicable cost standards, may be paid under the agreement.

USAID may (a) reject any or all applications, (b) accept applications for reasons other than cost, or (c) accept more than one application (see Section V - Application Review Information). USAID intends to award a cooperative agreement but reserves the right to award any other form of assistance agreement. USAID may waive informalities and minor irregularities in applications received.

In the event of any inconsistency between this RFA and the documents referenced in the RFA, the RFA takes precedence over any referenced documents (including the Technical References), except statutes and regulations. In the event of an inconsistency in the RFA documents or in the text of the RFA, it will be resolved at the discretion of the Agreement Officer (AO).

Thank you for your interest in USAID programs.

Sincerely, /S/

Matthew Nims Agreement Officer https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00WM4H.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/352986/External_Guidance_for_DFSA_in_COVID-19_FINAL_508_Compliant.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/352986/External_Guidance_for_DFSA_in_COVID-19_FINAL_508_Compliant.pdf

Section I – Program Description

This RFA provides information on funding opportunities for Resilience Food Security Activities (RFSAs), formerly known as Development Food Security Activities (DFSAs). Resilience activities are mandated in the Food for Peace Act. The Food for Peace Act, as amended, authorizes this funding opportunity. The resulting award will be subject to 2 CFR 200 – Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, and USAID’s supplement, 2 CFR 700, 22 CFR 211 – Transfer of Food Commodities for Use in Disaster Relief, Economic Development and Other Assistance, USAID/Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance Functional Policies (BHAFP), 22 CFR 216 - Agency Environmental Procedures, as well as the additional requirements found in Section VI. More specific information on the objectives, interventions, geographic locations targeted within the countries, and/or funding levels and types covered by this RFA may be found in the Program Description section. In addition, BHA posts market analyses, Climate Risk Profiles, and other related resources on the Country Fact Sheets page of the BHA website, as applicable.

If conditions permit (determined by BHA), the application process will include two phases. The first phase is the submission and review of an initial application (technical application and cost application). Successful applicants from phase one will receive an issues letter and may receive invitation letters to present their applications orally, and to address topline issues identified during the initial review of their applications. If they occur, oral presentations will constitute the second phase of the technical review process and will be a condition of the award. After discussions have concluded, the Apparently Successful Applicant(s) will receive a final issues letter, if necessary, and will be required to submit final technical and cost applications.

1. BHA Resilience Food Security Activities

The Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is the U.S. Government leader in international food assistance. BHA works to reduce hunger and malnutrition and promote that adequate, safe and nutritious food is available, accessible, and well-utilized by all individuals at all times to support a healthy and productive life.

Through BHA, USAID works to improve and sustain the food and nutrition security of vulnerable populations through multi-year resilience food and nutrition security activities. These activities work at the individual, household, community, and institutional levels to address the underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition and strengthen transformative opportunities. This includes a focus on improving food access and incomes through agriculture and other livelihoods initiatives; enhancing ecosystem services through natural resources management;

combating under-nutrition, especially for children under two and pregnant and lactating women; and reducing and mitigating disaster impact through early warning and community capacity building and preparedness activities. RFSAs are intended to strengthen resilience in populations vulnerable to acute, chronic hunger, and malnutrition; recurrent shocks, stresses, and crises; and to reduce the need for ongoing or future emergency food assistance. These https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=0f8eda4e84404f0ba37f4479def4c738&mc=true&node=pt22.1.211&rgn=div5 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=0f8eda4e84404f0ba37f4479def4c738&mc=true&node=pt22.1.211&rgn=div5 https://www.usaid.gov/humanitarian-assistance/partner-with-us/bha-emergency-guidelines https://www.usaid.gov/humanitarian-assistance/partner-with-us/bha-emergency-guidelines https://www.usaid.gov/food-assistance/where-we-work https://www.usaid.gov/food-assistance/where-we-work activities are increasingly integrated with other USAID efforts to promote resilience and reduce extreme poverty.

Since FY 2016, BHA has been awarding its RFSAs under a post-award co-creation model known as Refine and Implement (R&I) which is intended to improve the activity design, appropriateness for context, and implementation planning.

During initial refinement, new awardees may carry out a number of interventions including traditional start-up tasks and additional activities which may be, but are not limited to:

● Pre-implementation formative research and analysis that addresses evidence and knowledge gaps, strengthens understanding of local context, and helps to prioritize behaviors the activity will address;

● Small-scale operational research, piloting implementation strategies, and start-up of proven, evidence-based implementation strategies;

● Meaningful community engagement to 1) enable two-way feedback and participation around the planned activity, interventions and refinement period, 2) enhance understanding of local needs, opportunities and aspirations, and 3) ensure mutual accountability, including in decision making processes.2

● Participatory stakeholder engagement for strengthened local partnerships, capacity development and coordination;

● Refining the Theory Of Change (ToC) and implementation plans; and

● Preparation for implementation through hiring, staff training, and procurement of goods and services.

At the end of the Refinement Period, the Recipient and BHA will agree on a revised ToC and implementation plans, and on the activity social and behavior change strategy. The awardee should continue employing principles of adaptive management and ‘refinement’ approaches throughout the life of the award. See Appendix III for additional information.

An external evaluation will be completed in year four of the BHA-RFSA. BHA will consider extending the BHA-RFSA for up to five additional years if the evaluation finds that the activity has been exceptionally high performing and has substantial potential to make a larger contribution to BHA goals in the extension period. The R&I model creates the opportunity for BHA RFSAs to more closely align with BHA strategic and programmatic priorities (See Section 2).

Any extension beyond the initial five-year award is subject to the Determination to Restrict Eligibility (DRE) approval process in USAID Automated Directives System (ADS) 303.

2 Community briefings and consultative processes should take place in every community, while more extensive community visioning sessions should be carried out in a robust subset of communities.

2. BHA Goals and Objectives

The mission of the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) is to save lives, alleviate human suffering, and reduce the physical, social, and economic impact of rapid and slow-onset disasters, including support for at-risk populations to build stable foundations for their early recovery, risk reduction and resilience activities. BHA is fully committed to implementing USAID’s mandate as the lead U.S. Government coordinator for international disaster response.

BHA brings together the vast expertise and resources of USAID's former Offices of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and Food for Peace (FFP)--each with more than half a century of experience--into one influential voice on humanitarian assistance, enabling us to deliver life-saving assistance more efficiently and effectively. BHA achieves its mandate in coordination with affected populations, host governments, other USAID Bureaus, U.S. Government agencies and offices, other donor governments, and the private sector. BHA partners with Public International Organizations and local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to advance its mission and achieve results throughout the world.

● BHA Principles and Commitments

In its role as a global leader in the international humanitarian system, BHA is committed to supporting principled humanitarian action and to promoting reforms that will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian programming. For BHA and its partners, these commitments translate into work on the ground that models principled humanitarian action while moving reform efforts forward. BHA pursues efforts aligned with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence. BHA is also committed to advancing Grand Bargain reforms to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian assistance, including through improved linkages between humanitarian and development planning, when appropriate.

BHA is also committed to supporting early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience activities to complement humanitarian assistance. BHA focuses its early recovery, risk reduction, and resilience efforts where it can leverage existing humanitarian investments or where it can reduce existing humanitarian need; in contexts prone to recurrent crises and/or with pre-existing vulnerability and risk; and where investments have potential for measurable outcomes and/or impact.

BHA RFSAs may include in-kind food distributions or market-based interventions such as cash transfers or food vouchers, promotion of key nutrition messages, context-specific capacity building for livelihoods (notably agriculture), and broader community development initiatives, among other interventions, while seeking to reduce the need for future emergency food assistance.

BHA is committed to responding to and mitigating the effects of natural hazards and complex crises while building human and institutional capacities to withstand recurrent shocks and stresses. By providing a solid platform for further investments, BHA creates and advances opportunities for transformative and lasting change, thus enabling countries and populations to effectively prepare for, respond to, and recover and transition from rapid-onset and chronic humanitarian crises to more long-term development outcomes.

● Key Policy and Legislative Frameworks

BHA strategy brings together the responsibilities of the former OFDA and FFP. While BHA strategies are finalized, the Policy for Humanitarian Action and the Food Assistance and Food Security Strategy may serve as general guides in the interim.

As BHA moves forward, strategy and programming may reflect central former OFDA and FFP policies. Relevant policy frameworks may include the USAID Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy 2014-2025; USAID’s policy and program guidance “Building Resilience to Recurrent Crisis;”

USAID’s policy on Gender Equality and Female Empowerment; USAID’s policy on Youth in Development, and USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Strategy.

Legislative and Funding Authorities for BHA include Section 491 of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) and Title II of the Food for Peace (FFP) Act. BHA is authorized to undertake “nonemergency” food assistance programming that aims to alleviate the causes of hunger, promote economic and community development, promote food security, and build resilience to mitigate and prevent food crises and reduce the need for future emergency assistance.

In addition to these guidelines, BHA issues functional policies, technical reference and guidance documents, and other resources to support applicants and partners. Many of these focus on specific technical areas or humanitarian sectors and may include technical requirements for all award applicants.

3. Background/Context

Haiti faces critical food security needs given repeated hydrometeorological hazards and political instability in recent years on top of high levels of poverty. Haiti has faced civil unrest and violent political disturbance since its independence which has severely hampered its economic and social development. Ongoing political instability, a deteriorating economy, gang violence and street protests have resulted in increased security concerns and limited peoples’ access to essential services and markets. Two incidents of “Pays-Lock” protests, one in 2018 and one in 2019, have significantly impacted Haiti’s economy by driving up food prices and reducing employment opportunities.

Besides the socio–economic and political situation, COVID-19 poses a significant risk to Haiti. As per the daily data provided by the Ministry of Health, the current reporting case rate is low compared to other countries in the region. However, it remains a major threat due to the country’s poor health infrastructure and limited ability to respond to a widespread epidemic.

The political situation is expected to remain unstable, further weakening the country’s economy and capacity to provide essential services to combat the COVID-19 virus.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/Humanitarian%20Policy%20Framework_digital.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1867/FFP-Strategy-FINAL%2010.5.16.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1867/FFP-Strategy-FINAL%2010.5.16.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1867/USAID_Nutrition_Strategy_5-09_508.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1867/USAID_Nutrition_Strategy_5-09_508.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1865/GenderEqualityPolicy_0.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/GenderEqualityandWomensEmpowermentPolicy https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/Youth_in_Development_Policy_0.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/Youth_in_Development_Policy_0.pdf https://2012-2017.usaid.gov/democracy-human-rights-and-governance-strategy https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/chapter-32 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/chapter-32 https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Food%20For%20Peace%20Act.pdf

The poorest farmers in Haiti cultivate around 0.54 hectares per household while the wealthiest farmers cultivate 2.51 hectares per household--both of which are insufficient to fully support demand. Producing among the lowest yields in Latin America, exacerbated by post-harvest losses (PHL) of 50-60 percent, the agriculture sector supplies less than 50 percent of Haiti’s food needs and 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Accelerated land degradation and the effects of natural hazards further decrease the ability to produce consistently.

There are several key underlying problems in Haiti linked to the extraction and poor management of natural resources. This includes the degradation of productive lands, damaged watersheds, collapsed spring catchments, the unsustainable use of marine habitats, water contamination from human and plastic waste, and limited enforcement of environmental regulations. The lack of secure land tenure also plays a role in degradation. Instability and violent conflict are also attributable to weak natural resource management and environmental degradation.

Livelihoods pursuits in Haiti tend toward a layered approach--multiple sources of income pieced together, both on-and-off farm. Investment in the private sector is very low, constricted by high transportations costs and poor road conditions, low consistency and quantity of high-quality products, competition with Dominican Republic (DR) goods, and political instability. What larger industry that exists is largely family-owned and employment inaccessible to most rural Haitians. Therefore, most rural non-farm livelihoods are micro-scale, local services and supply of goods.

Women work mainly in post-harvest handling (PHH) and marketing of agricultural and non-agricultural products. Only a fraction of women working in agriculture own their own plots, and few are paid in cash for working on plots owned by others, diminishing their financial independence.3 In 44 percent of households, women live alone with their children due to male temporary or permanent migration.4 This type of household faces greater challenges to meet food and nutrition needs.5

Youth represent the majority of the Haitian population, and the key role they play as agents of change is being limited by high levels of unemployment, gang violence, and overall instability in the country. Meanwhile, early pregnancy and youth parenthood contribute to interrupted education and increase health and nutrition problems for adolescent mothers and their infants.

Haitian women are expected to be the primary household caregivers and responsible for productive work, and they also often serve in community activities. Such gendered division of labor contributes to women’s double and triple time burden and workload. Rural women are often full-time market traders in addition to agricultural laborers, and they spend twice as much time as men on domestic chores (15 hours vs. 7 hours weekly average), with up to 5

3 USAID/Haiti. “Gender Analysis DO2 PAD”, 2019. Pag. 17.

4 The United Nations Country Team in Haiti reports in its Common Country Assessment that “in rural areas, households are to a large extent headed by women”. (UN. June 2017, p.103).

5 https://www.refworld.org/docid/59ef1c184.html https://www.refworld.org/docid/59ef1c184.html hours a day collecting firewood and several hours a day fetching water. Women are also the primary decision-makers on family nutrition and usually responsible for food preparation.

Stunting rates for children under 5 in Haiti have not improved since 2012, hovering around 22 percent, (Haiti DHS 20126 & 20177) with the highest rate in Centre departments at 30 percent.

Stunting is associated with low quality diets of girls, women, infants and children, among other determinants. Several diet quality-related indicators in Haiti have shown limited improvement over the last decade. Since 2012, dietary diversity of children, frequency of feeding of children, and exclusive breastfeeding of infants have not improved or have deteriorated in the four target departments. For example, dietary diversity of children 6-23 months has worsened in Sud, Grand Anse, and Nord-Est and stands at a dismal 23 percent, 18 percent, and 21 percent, respectively (Haiti DHS 2017). Children and women remain deficient in micronutrients due to low supplementation and poor intake of micronutrients.

In addition, high rates of illness in children lead to poor absorption of nutrients. In particular, diarrheal prevalence for children under 5 is 21 percent with prevalence of children 6 to 11 months at 38 percent8. Diarrheal prevalence rates are above 21 percent in all four target departments. Although Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions are proven to reduce diarrheal disease rates (WHO 2011), Haiti is still lagging in adequate water and sanitation. Only 23 percent of rural households have access to an improved sanitation facility and less than half of households in rural areas have access to an improved water source and toilet facilities9. Poor WASH practices and poor operation and maintenance practices of drinking water sources contribute to poor environmental health conditions, which are associated with malnutrition. During the Demographic and Health Survey in 2017, 40 percent of the rural population reported using unimproved water sources, 36 percent practiced open defecation, and 12 percent of rural households had soap and water for hand washing.

4. RFSA Goal and Purposes

BHA intends to award one cooperative agreement to sustainably improve food security and resilience among extremely poor and chronically vulnerable households and communities in the South and Grand Anse departments (RFSA Southern target area) and Center and Northeast departments (RFSA Northern target area). Applicants must implement their program in both target areas and may select from a list of eligible or catchment Communes as informed by their own design. Applicants must ensure that some of the Communes in the Southern department are included in their RFSA Southern target area. Additionally, the proposed areas of

6 Enquête Mortalité, Morbidité et Utilisation des Services, Haïti, 2012.Calverton, Maryland, USA : MSPP, IHE et ICF International.

7 Enquête Mortalité, Morbidité et Utilisation des Services - EMMUS-VI 2016-2017 Pétion-Ville, Haïti, et Rockville, Maryland, USA : IHE et ICF.

8 Enquête Mortalité, Morbidité et Utilisation des Services - EMMUS-VI 2016-2017 Pétion-Ville, Haïti, et Rockville, Maryland, USA : IHE et ICF.

9 Enquête Mortalité, Morbidité et Utilisation des Services - EMMUS-VI 2016-2017 Pétion-Ville, Haïti, et Rockville, Maryland, USA : IHE et ICF.

implementation must operate in both USAID Haiti Mission Northern and the Southern Resilience Focus Zones. No application will be considered responsive unless both Resilience Focus Zones are included. See Appendix V for Maps and eligible Communes. Applicants must not propose Communes that are not listed in Appendix V. The cooperative agreement will follow the R&I approach.

Subject to the availability of funds and commodities, applicants must request in-kind Title II commodities. BHA’s most recent list of Title II commodities can be found in the BHA FY21 Commodity and Ocean Freight Price Estimates document. For each fiscal year of funding, the portion of the award funded by Section 202(e) of the Food for Peace Act must not exceed 50 percent of the annual budget, meaning that at least 50 percent of each year’s budget must be comprised of commodity procurement, ocean transportation, and Internal Transportation, Storage, and Handling (ITSH). ITSH funds can only be programmed in conjunction with commodities sourced from the United States, not with commodities procured locally, regionally and/or internationally. Other types of funding and monetization are not authorized. All resource requests must be appropriately justified. BHA intends to award one cooperative agreement of approximately $50 million, in Title II resources, for a five year period.

Goal

The goal of the activity is that chronically food insecure households and communities have improved food and nutrition security and enhanced resilience to shocks.

Purposes

The desired high-level purposes are as follows:

● Enhanced sustainable management of natural resources

● Increased consumption and utilization of safe and nutritious foods, especially by women and children

● Households attain more profitable livelihoods

Purpose 1: Enhanced sustainable management of natural resources

BHA seeks an approach to restore, conserve, and protect natural resources in the target area.

Key interventions will foster stakeholder collaboration, improve household and community capacities, and address issues linked to built and nature-based solutions (NbS). Stakeholder collaboration extends beyond just community members and leaders and could include local and/or regional government, other donor-funded programs, local communities and organizations, and the private sector, for example. Improved capacities should not only focus on strengthened community engagement in natural resources management (NRM) including water, but also build individual and community skills to more readily absorb, adapt, and recover from the effects of shocks and stresses. Proposed infrastructure, including NbS, should include https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1866/commodity-and-ocean-freight-price-estimates https://www.usaid.gov/documents/1866/commodity-and-ocean-freight-price-estimates how communities will ensure investments are of high quality with an early focus on long-term management. For all interventions within this purpose, sustainability is a critical factor.

Applicants should articulate a strategy of households capacity building that will enhance capacities of communities to more readily absorb, adapt, and recover from the effects of recurrent shocks (hurricanes/ floods, earthquakes or other natural hazards) and stresses (e.g., COVID-19, drought, pests, soil erosion/degradation, etc.) to achieve transformative results.

Applicants should demonstrate how this capacity building leverages existing local policies, platforms, systems, and structures. Absorptive capacity should be understood as a community’s ability to minimize exposure to shocks and stresses through mitigation measures and appropriate coping strategies to avoid permanent, negative impacts. Adaptive capacity should be understood as a community’s ability to make proactive and informed choices about alternative livelihood strategies based on an understanding of changing conditions.

Transformative capacity should be understood as the capacity to make intentional change to stop or reduce the causes of risk, vulnerability, poverty, and inequality, and ensure the more equitable sharing of risk so it is not unfairly borne by people living in poverty or suffering from discrimination or marginalization.

Purpose 2: Increased consumption and utilization of safe, nutritious foods, especially by women and children

Lasting improvements in key behaviors related to women’s diet and feeding and care of Haitian infants and young children will require high quality Social and Behavior Change (SBC) linked to improved access to quality community services and markets. Priority should be placed on interventions and strategies that address stagnating nutrition and WASH behaviors in the target communities. Partners shall describe how the project will address barriers and enablers to adoption, including social norms. Messaging, or unidirectional communication, to improve dozens of practices targeting mothers has proven insufficient in Haiti to sustainably improve nutrition and WASH behaviors. Partners may also evaluate the fecal-oral route for disease transmission and may consider efforts to improve environmental health.

SBC activities should be directly linked with other RFSA purposes and other USAID/Haiti investments such as Projet Santé, RANFOSE and AKSYON. Prior to proposing specific interventions and strategies, partners should clearly prioritize and justify the behaviors which would address causes inhibiting achievement of the purpose, “Increased consumption and utilization of safe, nutritious foods for women and children.” While applicants may select up to six priority outcomes for this purpose, USAID BHA suggests10 inclusion of the following four outcomes:

● Improved dietary diversity of children 6-23 months

● Exclusive breastfeeding of infants under 6 months

10 Alternatives to the suggested behaviors may be proposed if the applicant has sufficient justification for making the change.

● Reduction of young child mouthing and handling of feces and fomites

● Increased hand washing practices of children under 5 and their caregivers

Access to safe, diverse, and nutrient dense food is a clear problem, especially for poor and extremely poor Haitians who have limited purchasing power. As described above, diet quality is a challenge that extends beyond insufficient knowledge of which foods are best to improve diets of women, girls, and children under two. Applicants should highlight how the project will strive to improve access to diverse foods, especially with regards to the prioritized outcomes described above such as dietary diversity of children 6-23 months. Applicants should examine a range of approaches and modalities to improve the availability of diverse, nutrient dense foods and locally available fortified foods,11 targeting the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (new mothers, pregnant and lactating women (PLW) and children under two) and household members with limited purchasing power. These approaches may include homestead production, improved market access using vouchers or cash, and direct distribution of Title II specialized nutritious foods. (For purpose 2, please see the Technical Approach sections Multi-sectoral Nutrition and SBC.) WASH stand alone efforts are not expected, but BHA does encourage WASH to be incorporated as part of a holistic, integrated effort.

Purpose 3: Households attain more profitable livelihood

To meet their food and nutrition security needs, approaches must also address participants’ ability to attain sustainable, reliable, and sufficient livelihoods that are resilient to shocks and stresses. Financial services which could enable small business creation, expansion, or consistency of cash flow are largely unavailable to rural populations within the target locations.

Non-material aspects such as conception of and skills for viable livelihoods are also generally lacking, and with small agricultural producers, the capacity to gain the benefits of acting collectively are greatly limited.

As such, BHA seeks market-based approaches which address these barriers to consistently-profitable livelihoods. Interventions should address on-farm, off-farm, and/or non-farm livings, from self-employment to small business creation, specifically prioritizing the interests of women and youth. Successful applications will help enable access to financial services and capital appropriately suited to the target population, and accompany participants along complete pathways from livelihood conception, to training, to realization and maintenance. If targeted, small scale farmers should be empowered to capitalize on collective production and sales. Realistic and locally-appropriate opportunities should build on existing socio-economic structures and make innovative use of resources typically available to targeted participants, to promote livelihoods that sustain a living wage independent of humanitarian assistance.

11 The USAID Haiti RENFOSE project is supporting large scale fortification of wheat flour, vegetable oil, and salt.

5. Programming Principles

● Safe, Accountable, and Inclusive Programming

Applicants are expected to design and implement programs that promote safety and dignity, meaningful access, accountability, and participation and empowerment. Risk assessments should be conducted regularly and inform the targeting criteria, design, and adjustments to programs accordingly, implementing corrective measures as needed. Applicants are expected to consult with representatives of different segments of the population – women, men, boys, and girls; those with disabilities; older people; ethnic or religious minorities; and others in marginalized or vulnerable groups – to understand their practices, capacities, and coping strategies.

The application should reflect potential risks and address how the following four elements will be taken into account in the specific program activities: 1) Prioritize Safety and Dignity, and Avoid Causing Harm; 2) Meaningful Access; 3) Accountability; and 4) Participation and Empowerment.

Partners are expected to nuance these existing requirements to reflect COVID-19 considerations and factors, ensuring that program approaches remain safe and accessible and do not amplify existing risks, or create new ones. RFSA programs can play an important role in minimizing the impact of the pandemic and protecting nutrition security gains, and considering new risks facing households, communities, service delivery and local systems. However, the beneficial impact of interventions must be balanced with the safety, health and wellbeing of partner staff, and of those populations we serve. For more information, please refer to Guidance For BHA Development Food Security Activity Partners Working In Covid-19 Affected Operating Environments.

● Design for People-Centered Approaches

Working with communities and institutions is a pathway to addressing root causes and drivers of food insecurity, through efforts at the community level and, where appropriate, up to national policy and planning, in ways that strengthen the capacity of both formal and informal institutions, reduce risks, and provide engines of growth, opportunity and change. BHA is committed to keeping the interests and the voices of the most vulnerable people at the center of its work, and to crafting development responses based on the strengths, priorities, risks, and needs of the target population. Creating opportunities for vulnerable populations suffering from extreme poverty and food insecurity requires working in partnership with them, understanding their resources, capacities, risks, opportunities and constraints, as well as the broader systems that support them through formal and informal institutions and social dynamics. People-centered approaches require addressing challenges—such as shocks and stressors—that may undermine opportunities for positive change and providing linkages to newly emerging or previously out-of-reach resources, services, and catalysts for change.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/352986/External_Guidance_for_DFSA_in_COVID-19_FINAL_508_Compliant.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/352986/External_Guidance_for_DFSA_in_COVID-19_FINAL_508_Compliant.pdf

Given the concerning civil insecurity and political unrest and historical gender inequalities, applicants should pay particular attention to social dynamics that could affect people-centered approaches. Community power dynamics, existing community tensions related to natural resource management, different livelihoods, gender, age, social class, physical capabilities, and political or religious affiliation may all be important factors to consider.

● Address Social Dynamics and Local Governance to Strengthen Local Systems

Food insecurity, undernutrition, climate change impacts, and poverty are multi-dimensional challenges requiring a thorough understanding of contributing factors, potential drivers, potential change agents, and existing bottlenecks down to the sub-population level. BHA activities must identify, understand and address social and gender norms and disparities, power dynamics, levels of diversity and inclusion, and the nature of participation within local systems-including social dynamics in local communities, formal and informal institutions- in their target area(s). When left unaddressed, they have the potential to undermine development impacts or, conversely, to enable positive change when enhanced in ways that increase motivation, equity, social cohesion, and transparent socially accountable service delivery. BHA supports partners to work within local systems in order to strengthen human and institutional actors through understanding, addressing, and improving social dynamics and local governance.

● Develop Context-specific and Tailored Responses

A thorough analysis of the drivers of food and nutrition insecurity for each sub-target population and thoughtful, direct, and inclusive engagement of communities in the design can facilitate a more tailored approach to programming specific to each sub-target population. The analysis should incorporate ways in which barriers to food security relate to and influence each other and their impact on each sub-target population. Carefully designed and implemented interventions tailored to the specific set of participants for each separate intervention provide greater potential for short-term impact and long-term sustainability than a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Understanding and responding to the local context and specific needs of different groups, while also striving to promote social cohesion, can facilitate opportunities for transformative change and help communities to grow, strengthen systems, and improve well-being for the most vulnerable.

● Prioritization and Focus

A highly complex set of determinants affects food availability, access, utilization, and stability.

In low resource environments, the full range of context-specific needs and opportunities can easily exceed the capacity of any one project to respond comprehensively and effectively.

There are limits, in addition, to the level of change in knowledge, attitudes, and practices that individuals, households, and communities can both absorb and apply. Effective programming will identify leverage points and factors that address key drivers of food and nutrition insecurity and seek to prioritize and sequence a limited number of interventions. Prioritization and focus on a limited number of factors affecting each purpose or objective of an applicant's RFSA is key.

Lessons learned from previous RFSA evaluations have indicated that projects often try to respond to all determinants of food insecurity and malnutrition. The result has been limited success. Some interventions are successful, while others are not implemented at all or are only successful at a very small scale due to a lack of prioritization and focus. BHA discourages approaches that have too many wide-ranging interventions. Applicants are therefore expected to analyze the context of the specific communes or departments of operation, and identify the priority capacities and needs to develop programs specific to that context and the targeted populations. This will help keep the design feasible, catalytic in nature, and tailored to the needs of each population, while also allowing for a higher degree of quality and impact. In supporting this approach, BHA seeks to extend the depth of programming to facilitate the pathway of households and communities to graduate from extreme poverty.

● Strive for Sustainability

In its goal statement, BHA has increased its commitment to investing in improved food security for vulnerable populations in a manner that supports long-term and self-perpetuating change and the continued well-being of the vulnerable populations with which BHA works. Embodied in this commitment is the need to understand the operating environment and to strengthen local systems, both formal and informal, to increase the potential for sustained motivation, capacity, resources, and linkages in support of continued food security impacts.

● Leverage Collaboration to Achieve Collective Impact

The Haiti RFSA will be expected to strategically and operationally work in line with relevant national and local government policies and systems and leverage and link with other actors working to address the drivers of food insecurity. Applicants should discuss key relevant policies (both national and sub-national), how the proposed interventions would help realize the policies, or how interventions would address policies that may inhibit communities from sustainably addressing food insecurity. Such collaboration will require coordination, joint planning, strategic alignment, and shared accountability and learning among stakeholders and can lead to more effective and lasting results through collective impact. Operationally layering, integrating, and sequencing different projects and interventions with other development and humanitarian actors will promote more holistic, impactful and sustainable outcomes.

Key to leveraging collaboration and achieving collective impact are a number of conditions of shared success. BHA encourages applicants to endeavor to achieve these conditions to the extent possible as outcomes of their activities. These include:

● Common Agenda: All stakeholders have a shared vision for change including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions.

● Shared Measurement: Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold each other accountable.

● Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Activities must be differentiated while still being coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action.

● Continuous Communication: Consistent and open communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and appreciate common motivation.

Key to achieving these conditions will be dedicated management support. Whether it is through an individual, a team, or a steering committee of stakeholders (including USAID), applicants should propose a management approach or mechanism to maintain overall strategic coherence, coordination and management of day-today operations and activity implementation.

Given Haiti’s recent history of political and social unrest and vulnerability to shocks, the USAID/Haiti Mission is focused on programming to increase the resilience of people, households, communities, and systems through building adaptive, absorptive, and transformative capacity. Working with communities to invest in resilience across sectors (e.g.

food and nutrition security, healthcare, and governance) will prepare people, households, communities, and systems to mitigate and respond to shocks as they occur and reduce the impact of recurrent crises in the long-term. Applicants should consider layering their RFSA with specific ongoing and forthcoming USAID programs. These include but are not limited to: the “AKSYON,” “Haiti WASH,” and “RANFOSE” activities which promote nutrition security and the “Reforestation” and “Haiti Invest” projects, which promote livelihoods, natural resources management, agricultural development, and private sector engagement.

The new Haiti RFSA will also be expected to sequence its start up and implementation with newly designed programs by the USAID Haiti Mission. Specifically, the Haiti Mission is issuing a solicitation to implement the “Haiti Resilience and Agriculture Sector Advancement” (HRASA) activity. The HRASA activity is contemplated to be issued near the same time as the current RFSA, and coordinating the launch and implementation of both HRASA and the RFSA will likely be a requirement for both awardees as a coordinated strategy to achieve USAID’s resilience objective in Haiti. See Appendix III for more detail about specific requirements during the Refine and Implement (R&I) period.

This RFSA activity contributes to the current USAID/Haiti Mission’s overarching Strategic Framework and specifically to the Development Objective 1 (DO1) program. The underlying assumption for resilience within the DO1 program is that by deliberately layering, sequencing, and integrating efforts, the collective activities will produce greater and more sustainable results than any single activity could do in isolation. This RFSA and all other USAID activities in the Resilience Focus Zones will be required to contribute to the DO1 results framework, transformative outcomes and operational principles.

To facilitate the collaborative process, DO1 activities will be required to do the following:

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1862/USAID-Haiti-Strategic-Framework-2018-2020.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1862/USAID-Haiti-Strategic-Framework-2018-2020.pdf

● Proactively seek opportunities for joint programming that amplifies results;

● Describe joint activities in annual work plans that clarify roles and responsibilities around specific programmatic linkages with other DO1 activities;

● Conduct joint site visits with other DO1 partners, when appropriate, to facilitate learning across activities;

● Actively participate in USAID partner meetings and learning events; and

● Contribute to joint indicators linked to the DO1 results framework, analysis, and the diffusion of reliable information in collaboration with other DO1 activities.

USAID Haiti Mission experiences indicate that interventions supported by a broad partner base are more likely to result in successful and inclusive socio-economic development. Expanding Haiti’s partner base will mobilize the expertise of in-country actors and stakeholders (including regional and municipal governance structures, CSOs, the private sector, associations, and educational institutions, among others) to advance inclusive humanitarian assistance, economic growth, and social progress. Thus, applicants should explore leveraging other donor investments, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Union, France and Canada and provide a landscape of donors and programs in the targeted areas, including the name of the activity, duration and purpose.