HRASA - Presolicitation Notice.pdf

U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

U.S. Embassy Tel: (509) 2229-8000

Boulevard de 15 Octobre Fax: (509) 2229-8066

HT-6123 Tabarre 41, HAITI https://www.usaid.gov/haiti

P.O. Box 1634, Port-au-Prince, HAITI

SOLICITATION TYPE: Pre-Solicitation Notice – Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO)

PROGRAM NAME: Feed the Future Haiti Resilience and Agriculture Sector

Advancement (HRASA) Activity

ISSUANCE DATE: May 18, 2020

TO: ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

The purpose of this pre-solicitation notice is to communicate with industry regarding the

Government's upcoming requirement for the anticipated Feed the Future Haiti Resilience and

Agriculture Sector Advancement (HRASA) Activity. The U.S. Agency for International

Development (USAID), represented by the Economic Growth and Agriculture Development Team in USAID Port-au-Prince Haiti is issuing this Pre-Solicitation Notice. The anticipated contract’s goal is to increase individual, household, and communities’ resilience through strengthened, well-functioning and inclusive markets. The purpose of HRASA is to establish and strengthen a sustainable, inclusive agricultural market system that is resilient to shocks and stresses.

USAID values ideas and information provided by industry and seeks their input. Responses to this notice are NOT considered offers and CANNOT be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. USAID is not seeking technical or cost proposals at this time. Please do not submit a full proposal as it will not be reviewed and will be discarded.

Responses to this Notice are strictly voluntary and USAID will NOT reimburse for the preparation of information submitted. Submissions in response to this NOTICE will NOT be returned and respondents will NOT be notified of the results of the review. Respondents may, however, receive a confirmation of receipt of the response.

By responding to this NOTICE, there will be no advantage to any entity in any subsequent procurement. This Notice does NOT restrict the Government’s acquisition approach on a future solicitation.

Please submit comments, questions, recommendations no later than Friday, June 5, 2020 to

Agnès Léon at aleon@usaid.gov and Sabrina Silva at ssilva@usaid.gov.

Sincerely, Sharon M. Baker

Supervisory Contracting Officer mailto:aleon@usaid.gov mailto:ssilva@usaid.gov

ATTACHMENT J.1

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO) for

Feed the Future Haiti Resilience and Agriculture Sector Advancement (HRASA) Activity

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The goal of the Feed the Future Haiti Resilience and Agriculture Sector Advancement (HRASA) activity is to increase individual, household, and communities’ resilience through strengthened, well-functioning and inclusive markets. The purpose of HRASA is to establish and strengthen a sustainable, inclusive agricultural market system that is resilient to shocks and stresses. With a focus on market-based solutions, activities will be centered in two Resilience Focus Zones (RFZ); one is located in the southern

Les Cayes region and the other in the North-North East-Central Plateau region. HRASA will pursue three integrated objectives to accomplish its purposes.

1. Increased market system efficiency

2. Increased private sector investment and engagement across the market system

3. Increased household and community ability to recover from shocks and stresses

Objective 1. Increased market system efficiency: Market systems are most efficient when they are competitive (system actors are able to innovate and add value to their products and services to match market demand), inclusive (the market system delivers sustainable benefits to all the system actors, including the poor and marginalized groups), and resilient (system actors and segments are able to absorb and overcome shocks and stresses affecting the market system). Where market systems work exclusively or inefficiently, people who are poor have fewer options to benefit directly from economic development and growth that are often concentrated within market-ready stakeholders. Such growth does not translate to optimal gains and profits since the most underserved and marginalized groups (who are also producers and consumers driving demand and supply forces) are excluded and under-utilized.

Alternatively, efficient market systems lead to increased productivity and profitability in the different segments of the market system, and production and market systems that are better adapted to recurrent shocks, stresses and ongoing climatic trends. An efficient system should engage all relevant market actors and ensure inclusion of diverse segments of the population, with smallholder farmers, youth, and women so that they can participate in markets and fully contribute to economic growth. When access to market-based research and extension, information, inputs, goods and services; and transfer of assets, skills and technology is done at all levels of the market system, the system generates long-term growth and is able to sustain wealth and intergenerational livelihoods. All segments of an efficient market system are productive and profitable with all stakeholders receiving economic benefits.

2. Increased private sector investment and engagement across market systems: Interventions that increase private sector investment and engagement across the market system translate into new market-based relationships between private businesses and smallholders that result in positive return on investment for the businesses and new opportunities for the marginalized smallholders and micro entrepreneurs. As firms expand investment and broaden their exchange of goods and services with more smallholders, the smallholders become the businesses’ suppliers and/or customers. This momentum can build toward a more inclusive market system benefiting a broader range of actors. When transfer of knowledge, technology and information flows efficiently between the private sector and farmers; the productive capacity of the smallholder farmers is built as they engage and benefit from the market system; and ultimately: (1) create sustainable linkages between market actors, including SMEs and smallholders, and agribusinesses in the supply chains, broadening the engagement in the market and increasing its effectiveness and profitability, (2) manage risk to maintain market system function, (3) and ensure adaptability of the system to respond to changing opportunities and constraints.

3. Increased household and community ability to recover from shocks and stresses: A well-functioning market system can help build resilience capacities at household and community levels.

Participant households and communities have greater access to diversified livelihood opportunities, increased asset ownership, increased savings and access to financial services, increased access to market systems information, and improved early warning systems. These resilience capacities contribute to the households and communities’ abilities to absorb and adapt to shocks and stresses. Targeted groups, including youth and women are empowered to take advantage of those economic opportunities. Targeted participant households and communities have access to information needed to make strategic decisions to protect their assets and successfully recover from shocks and stresses.

2.0 BACKGROUND

Haiti’s circumstances of chronic poverty compounded by recurrent stresses and shocks makes a focus on resilience all the more important. USAID defines resilience as “the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”1 Within USAID and the wider development community, there is now recognition that Haiti has been unable to recover from a pattern of recurrent shocks over decades because local populations are unable to manage the risks they face and adapt and recover to pre-shock levels of well-being when a shock occurs. These recurrent stresses and shocks include covariate level shocks (such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, animal and crop pests and diseases, price and market shocks, community violence), idiosyncratic shocks

(sickness, death, divorce), and ongoing stressors (such as limited and erratic rainfall, low soil fertility, rapid population growth, corruption, limited to no public service delivery, underdeveloped markets) that continuously undermine development gains despite ongoing development assistance.

These shocks and stresses compound chronic rural poverty and set back progress in agriculture.

Twenty-five percent of Haiti’s 11.1 million population lives on less than $1.90 per day and 59 percent, or approximately six million people, lives below the national poverty line of $2.41 per day. Agriculture, central to the Haitian economy, employs 60 percent of the population in rural areas. However, it only generates 25 percent of GDP. Only 45 percent of the country’s food needs are met by local production, while the deficit is covered by imports. Remittances from the diaspora are important in the Haitian economy. At USD$3.2 billion in 2018, remittances accounted for 34.3 percent of GDP — three times higher than any other category of capital inflows such as Official Development Assistance (ODA) and

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Haitians utilize the lion’s share of these resources to purchase consumer goods, mostly imported.

1 https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/Policypercent20percent26percent20Programpercent20Guidancepercent20-percent20Buildingpercent20Resiliencepercent20topercent20Recurrentpercent20Crisis_Decpercent202012.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/Policy%20%26%20Program%20Guidance%20-%20Building%20Resilience%20to%20Recurrent%20Crisis_Dec%202012.pdf https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/Policy%20%26%20Program%20Guidance%20-%20Building%20Resilience%20to%20Recurrent%20Crisis_Dec%202012.pdf

Many farmers are small-scale subsistence farmers, producing just enough to meet family needs on plots that average one hectare. The most vulnerable are the poorest households living below the national poverty line of $2.41 USD/day. They are food insecure as they have very limited financial resources and/or assets and they are the most affected by shocks. They generally allocate 70 percent of their income to food and are the most impacted when food prices increase.2 They often use negative coping strategies when stresses and shocks occur, such as selling their livelihood assets (animals), and cutting down fruit trees that were planted to provide cash (mangoes) for charcoal production. As some of the poorest households do not own land, they often sell their labor or work a plot of land where half of the output is provided to the landowner (“De mwatye”).

The main cereal crops grown in Haiti are maize, rice, and sorghum, which also make up key food staples. Cereal crops are a critical contributor to Haiti’s nutritional status as they supply around 37.5 percent of the population’s total caloric intake. Legumes, roots, tubers and fruits are also important components of Haiti’s agri-food systems and play a strategic role for nutrition and income generation.

Animal production is important for nutrition and income generation and represents strategic assets for most Haitian farmers during times of household crisis.

Haiti is classified as one of the countries with the highest climate risk and natural disaster indices in the world.3 The growing threat of weather-related shocks and stresses coupled with inadequate coping mechanisms and contingency planning make Haitian farmers extremely exposed to the effects of weather-related shocks4 inhibiting long-term economic growth and food security. With significant numbers of households facing the impacts of recurrent shocks and increasing number of people dependent on humanitarian assistance, the need is all the more pressing for climate resilience strategies to mitigate and address the impact of climate change.

The two RFZs have an estimated total population of 1.2 million - Zone 1 (north) having an estimated population of 703,000 and Zone 2 (south) estimated population is 465,000. The Northern RFZ includes part of the North Department, the North-East and the three northernmost communes of the upper Central Plateau. The Northern part of this zone includes humid plains (Plaine du Nord, Saint-

Raphael), a drier plain in the North-East (Maribaroux plain). A mountain range separates the Northern range of the RFZ from its Southern part that includes several communes of the Upper Central Plateau.

The plains and surrounding hillsides are characterized by the production of many crops, including cereals, legumes, vegetables, plantain, banana, roots, tubers, and various tree crops. Farm animals represent strategic assets and an important source of incomes there. The mountain range bordering the

Upper Central Plateau had been an important coffee production area in the past. Coffee production declined and even disappeared in most of this area, significantly reducing economic opportunities in these communes where the agroforestry systems are either severely disturbed or destroyed following the decline of coffee production. Farmers in some of the remote, difficult terrains often practice risky and low return hillside agriculture. Farmers in the communes of the Upper Central Plateau grow various crops including cereals and legumes on fragile land unsuited to this use. Animal husbandry is

2 CNSA 2017

3 Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery For reference data on this point please visit https://www.gfdrr.org/haiti

4 Note that “coping” mechanisms often include risky behaviors such as migration to other areas or abroad for work or sending children to be “fostered” by others - essentially contributing to domestic servitude through the “restavec” practice.

https://www.gfdrr.org/haiti also important in the area. The average farm size in the Northern RFZ is less than one hectare, although larger farms can be found, particularly in the plains and in the Central Plateau. The Northern

RFZ has been affected by a severe drought in recent years and this has reduced agricultural production as most of the farmers rely on rainfed agriculture. Parts of this region have also been subject to flooding caused by sporadic heavy rainfalls and by hurricanes. While extensive irrigation systems exist in some areas, they are either in disrepair or are poorly maintained.

The Southern Resilience Focus Zone includes Plaine des Cayes, Plaine de Torbeck and surrounding hillsides, along with a part of the South Coast. Farmers in this RFZ grow a combination of crops, depending on the local ecosystems, including cereals, legumes, vegetables, roots and tubers, fruits and vetiver. The average farm size is similar to that of the Northern RFZ. Livestock is an important part of the livelihoods mix in this RFZ that hosts the most important cattle market in Haiti. Less affected by drought than the Northern RFZ, this area is however more prone to hurricanes.

Unemployment, underemployment and migration, especially among the young, are common in both

RFZs. Approximately 40 percent of Haiti’s population of 11.1 million is between the ages of 10 and 29, while an estimated half are under the age of 21. Evidence cited in an assessment of Haitian youth

USAID carried out in 2016 indicated that economically empowered young people are critical to Haiti’s sustainable development. The Assessment identified several factors that affect youth: the economy, education, social support structures, health, well-being, juvenile justice, crime and violence, and climate change affecting the environment. More specifically, findings from the assessment indicate that the

Haitian youth development landscape is complex, dynamic and challenging; however, that educated, healthy, economically empowered, socially connected, resilient, and active young people remain Haiti‘s best hope for sustainable development.

Women in rural Haiti face multiple vulnerabilities, having less means to shield themselves from unfavorable economic, ecological, and health risks due to lack of access to resources, knowledge, and circumstances. In rural Haiti, women and men are interdependent actors with gendered division of labor though gender roles are changing and cannot be generalized. However, traditionally, men have been responsible for land clearing, tilling, and using heavy machinery while women are responsible for weeding, harvesting and marketing products within the informal sector. Rural women are often full-time market traders in addition to agricultural laborers and spend twice as much time as men on domestic chores (15 hours vs. 7 hours weekly), with up to five hours a day collecting firewood and several hours a day fetching water. Women and men are estimated to be engaged in formal and informal productive work (including commercial and agricultural activities) at rates of 66 percent and 48 percent respectively. The 2008 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

(CEDAW) report notes that more than 10 percent of women in rural areas work on their own farms.

The report asserts that female agricultural workers are not paid as their labor is seen as ‘auxiliary’ labor supplementing that performed by the male head of the family. Furthermore, it notes that men dominate higher-income agricultural export activities and women play a crucial role in post-harvest marketing and sale, but their access to more lucrative roles in the value chain are limited by low access to business support services, credit, and export-oriented collectives. However, despite receiving little support from the state, market women have become the backbone of domestic agricultural commerce, with informal networks across the country selling locally sourced agricultural products and providing small amounts of credit to local farmers. Known in creole as “Madan Sara”, these women provide a critical market linkage between rural producers and urban markets.

Haitian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are critical to Haiti’s economy, including in the two RFZs. While Haiti’s unemployment rate is estimated at more than 40 percent, MSMEs account for more than 80 percent of current Haitian employment. USAID support to MSMEs in recent years helped create more than 25,000 permanent jobs and a recent study conducted under the USAID Local

Enterprise and Value Chain Enhancement (LEVE) project shows a return of $2.98 to the Haitian economy for every $1 invested in growing sectors.

Concerning private sector investment and access to and use of financial services, private sector investment is very limited in rural areas and Haiti’s rural populations still have limited access to formal financial services. Even though there has been an increase in the number of clients of microfinance institutions (including credit unions), only a limited number of clients in rural areas access formal agricultural credit with products adapted to their cash flow needs. Where those services exist, interest rates are high, impeding investment in adaptive capacity of the most vulnerable households.

3.0 GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Contract Management: This activity will be managed by the Economic Growth and Agriculture

Development Team in USAID Port-au-Prince Haiti. The Office of Acquisition and Assistance, USAID/Haiti will provide technical and administrative oversight to the Contactor through the designated

Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

Anticipated Period and Place of Performance: The Feed the Future Haiti Resilience and Agriculture

Sector Advancement (HRASA) activity is anticipated to be a five-year contract (2021-2026).

Geographic Focus: The authorized geographic code for procurement of goods and services under this contract is 937. In accordance with ADS 310.3.3.3, revised February 6, 2012, code 937 refers to the

United States, the recipient country, and developing countries other than advanced developing countries, but excluding any country that is a prohibited source. Please see ADS 310 for further details.

Grants Management and Country Implementation: USAID Haiti has authorized the use of grants under contract (GUC) during implementation of this contract. While it is expected that part of HRASA will support local partners through small grants, it is anticipated that HRASA will also use a range of tools in addition to the small grants to achieve the program’s objectives. Grants may include performance-based or any other innovative approaches to giving grants that mitigates fraud, promote accountability and improve effectiveness and efficiency. These grants could support capacity building, private sector engagement, technical assistance needs, equipment, and other areas deemed critical to system improvements. The contractor must set aside a minimum of $5,000,000 of its total budget to provide GUCS.

4.0 PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS

USAID is using a Statement of Objectives (SOO) framework for this solicitation in order to incentivize innovative approaches, solicit ideas from experts in the industry, allow for greater flexibility, and improve results and impact. In accordance with the SOO, Contractors must propose a theory of change and performance work statement (PWS) that is informed by their expertise and an extensive local consultation process, and includes a robust, specific, integrated context-appropriate set of activities that will achieve the objectives of this program. The theory of change is a narrative description of how and why an objective or result is expected to be achieved based on the proposed technical approach in a particular context. The contractor will also include a logic model – a graphic visual display of the activity’s theory of change – to show the logical relationships between what the activity will do and the changes it expects to affect. Indicators listed in the table below are for illustrative purposes.

Contractors must propose different additional activities, outcomes and illustrative indicators based on their expertise and the strengths of their consortiums. Overarching indicators and targets will be determined and agreed upon as part of the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) plan after award. The contractor must provide indicators and approaches for measuring progress across, including custom indicators and targets to accommodate the Haiti context.

Purpose: Establish and strengthen a sustainable, inclusive agricultural market system that is resilient to shocks and stresses

Objectives Illustrative indicators

Objective 1:

Increased Market System Efficiency

Yield5 of targeted agricultural commodities among program participants with USG assistance (disaggregated by age, sex, smallholder/non-smallholder)

Value of annual sales of producers and firms receiving USG assistance (disaggregated by age, sex, smallholder/non-smallholder)

Number of technologies, practices, and approaches under various phases of research, development, and uptake as a result of USG assistance

Number of individuals and producers in the agriculture system who have applied improved management practices or technologies with USG assistance

5 The Feed the Future definition for yield considers both livestock and plant (crop) production.

Purpose: Establish and strengthen a sustainable, inclusive agricultural market system that is resilient to shocks and stresses

Objectives Illustrative indicators

Objective 2:

Increased private sector investment and engagement across market systems

Value of private sector investment in the targeted market system(s)

Number of partnerships between participants and private sector entities (disaggregated by segment of the market system)

Number of transactions between participants and private sector entities (disaggregated by segment of the market system)

Objective 3:

Increased household and community ability to recover from shocks and stresses

Percentage of participant households with diversified income sources

Percentage of participant households with increased productive asset ownership

Percentage of participant households accessing financial services

Percentage of participant households with improved absorptive and adaptive capacities

Number of participant communities with disaster early warning systems in place

Number of participants with access to market information (e.g. pricing forecasts, gov’t policy information)

5.0 CONSTRAINTS AND RISKS:

Innovation: Sustainably advancing agriculture sector development in Haiti will require innovation and out-of-the box thinking and approaches adapted to the local context. Innovation refers to new technologies, new ways of delivering goods and services, more cost-effective adaptations to existing solutions, new ways of implementation of existing proven solutions, policy changes, social or behavioral innovations. Universities and other institutions involved in research support this need for continued innovation in any agricultural market system. When human and institutional capacity for formulating and implementing targeted market-oriented research are built, those institutions can help address key bottlenecks in value chains and take advantage of existing opportunities to develop transformative market systems. Contractor must address innovation in its approach to the overall activity and propose innovative solutions to facilitate market-focused applied research.

Local Stakeholder Collaboration: Strategic and proactive engagement among key stakeholders within an industry or sector improves the identification and definition of critical economic and social development problems; strengthens the design and implementation of promising solutions to those problems, including the use of market-based approaches; and increases the sustainable impact of our respective interventions. The contractor must show evidence of collaboration and coordination with key stakeholders, including the use of co-creation fora, in the solution scoping and development. At the implementation level, the activity will work with the Government of Haiti (GOH), the private sector, donors, local governments, community leaders, industry associations, producer groups, and other relevant institutions.

Collaboration and Integration with other USAID activities/development partners: USAID recognizes that the project is pursuing challenging results in a difficult environment. Building resilience of people and systems to recurrent crises; expanding agricultural and other sector-related economic growth, improving governance and natural resources management, and improving health and nutrition outcomes requires a multi-sector approach and will involve combining interventions from many different disciplines that have traditionally been implemented in isolation. Within USAID/Haiti, this collaborative approach that is the core of the Mission resilience approach currently includes Food for

Peace (FFP), Economic Growth and Agriculture Development (EGAD), Health, Democracy and

Governance (DG), and the Infrastructure, Energy and Engineering (OIEE) offices. These offices are expected to contribute to and collaborate on activities covering food security, nutrition-sensitive agricultural market systems that can provide access to nutritious and diverse foods, access to credit and other economic opportunity activities, and apply sustainable natural resources management approaches to ensure sustainable practices to build resilience. Contractor must take into consideration Mission interest in crowding in activities in the RFZs and surrounding areas as much as possible to better leverage strategic and technical collaboration and to assure collective impact. In particular, the contractor must coordinate with the FFP/DFSA’s upcoming activities which will aim to increase the resilience of chronically vulnerable households in the two RFZs. HRASA and DFSA will commit to strategically layer, sequence, integrate and coordinate USAID resilience-building investments in a mutually supportive manner.

Private Sector Engagement: USAID is committed to collaborating with the private sector in alignment with the USAID Private Sector Engagement Policy published in December 2018. This solicitation seeks to foster activities that are characterized by extensive collaboration with the private sector through the implementation of market system development approaches in order to achieve greater development impact. By partnering with USAID, the private sector is able to leverage USAID and our partners’ expertise, assets and working relationships in a manner that advances business success and fosters the broader economic growth and poverty reduction that is vital to sustaining such success. By partnering with the private sector, USAID and our partners are able to leverage private sector markets, activity, expertise, interests, and assets in a manner that solves critical development problems and promotes effective market-led development. Through strategic and ongoing collaboration, the private sector, USAID and our partners are better able to increase the impact, reach, efficiency, and effectiveness of our business and development investments and help countries achieve self-reliance. The contractor must show how they will https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1865/usaid_psepolicy_final.pdf proactively engage the private sector in the problem identification and definition, the solution scoping and development, and the solution implementation. Consistent with the market system development approach, the contractor is expected to demonstrate how the activity will incorporate market-based approaches over the course of the award and how they will be implemented; and explain how private sector engagement or market-based approaches will specifically contribute to the outputs, outcomes and intended impact of the activity. It is also critical that the contractor explains how the outcomes and results, as well as any activities that need to continue beyond the duration of a USAID award, will be sustainable without continued USAID funding or involvement after the award ends.

Nutrition Sensitive Market Systems: Current key nutrition statistics in Haiti from the

Demographic Health Survey show a level of 21.9 percent of children stunted, 9.5 percent of children underweight, and 3.7 percent children wasted. These figures have been consistently improving for more than 20 years except for stunting which has hit a plateau in the last five years.

The GOH October 2019-February 2020 food security map indicates that up to 35 percent of the population in the resilience focus zones are in a food security crisis mode. This situation is expected to get worse with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Agricultural production and market systems have the potential to lead to improved nutrition by increasing access to diverse and nutritious diets. The contractor must demonstrate how the proposed solution incorporates nutrition sensitive interventions that will contribute to both nutrition and resilience outcomes.

Climate Sensitive Market Systems:

Climatic shocks and stresses, such as drought, increasingly irregular rainfall patterns, hurricanes, severe storms, and recurrent flooding have been a constant and growing challenge to agricultural production in Haiti. Significant changes in average temperature and precipitation can adversely affect crop and livestock productivity, post-harvest handling, and storage, all of which have serious implications for rural households’ income and well-being. All segments of a profitable market system must be resilient to new and future climatic trends. The contractor must demonstrate how the proposed solution addresses adaptation to climate change.

Two Defined Resilience Focus Zones: Interventions under this activity must be carried out in areas identified within the two Resilience Focus Zones. Offerors should refer to the maps of the zones and list of communes.

Shock-Responsive Programming and Adaptive Mechanisms: USAID recognizes that many of the interventions under this activity will be implemented in zones of recurrent crisis. This necessitates a shock-responsive approach to programming to help beneficiaries absorb, adapt to, and recover from shocks thereby reducing losses, preventing a downward spiral of divestment leading to destitution, and protecting the hard-won potential development gains of the activities.

The contractor must build in programmatic and operational flexibility into their activities to allow quick response to unanticipated challenges which consistently occur in Haiti. This could include, but is not limited to, crisis modifiers that allow for an integrated crisis response between the humanitarian and development sectors. Contractors should refer to the USAID’s Shock Responsive Programming

Guidance.6 An adaptive shock responsive approach will allow for agile approaches for responding to

6 https://usaidlearninglab.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/shock_responsive_programming_guidance_compliant.pdf https://usaidlearninglab.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/shock_responsive_programming_guidance_compliant.pdf situations that can occur in Haiti during project implementation and to allow for adjustments depending on the impact from the shock.

Marginalized Populations: The contractor must detail how it will support activities primarily designed to meet the unique needs of and support marginalized populations to meet their potential.

Gender. The contractor must demonstrate how its solution sets will be tailored to maximize gender and social inclusion, as required per USAID’s gender policy ADS 2057 and the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment (WEEE) Act8, enacted on January 9, 2019. Per ADS Chapter 205, all

USAID activities are required to consider the different roles of men and women, the relationship between and among men and women, and the broader institutional and social structures that support them. Contractor must address how interventions are likely to impact individuals differently based on their gender roles and cultural norms.

Youth. Young men and women are engaged in the agri-food system in a variety of ways — through formal and informal wage work, unpaid family labor, self-employment — and across all levels of value chains. Youth earn “mixed livelihoods” from various sources — on-farm, off-farm, and non-farm — and with self-employment and migration playing particularly important roles. When trained and empowered, youth tend to favor modern agriculture practices, use of technology, and opportunities with relatively higher returns than staple crops. With the growing youth population in Haiti, alleviating youth unemployment and underemployment in the RFZs is critical. The contractor must demonstrate, based on an analysis of the opportunity space with youth in rural Haiti, how young men and women will be empowered to take advantage of existing and potential economic opportunities to create wealth and become active change agents in the Resilience Focus Zones.

Productive Infrastructure: Affordable, reliable and sustainable productive infrastructure is the foundation for resilient, inclusive, sustainable growth and essential to a country’s self-reliance. Haiti has been affected by a long and severe drought in the last years. The effects of the drought are exacerbated by limited access to irrigation water and inappropriate maintenance of the existing systems that often fall into disrepair after donor projects that rehabilitate them come to an end. In addition, access to water for farmers who tend to work the most marginal lands is often limited. Innovative strategies are needed to ensure continuous and inclusive provision of water to both irrigated and rain-fed areas. The contractor must demonstrate how it plans to facilitate sustainable, equitable access to productive water in the resilience focus zones.

Ability to learn and adapt program approaches (learning and adapting): Evidence shows that the outcome of an activity will be enhanced when the programming is coordinated, grounded in evidence, and adapted through the implementation to improve effectiveness and performance. The contractor must demonstrate how Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) practices will be incorporated into the activity. The contractor must demonstrate how it plans to ensure that the implementing team, systems and processes are well-developed for advancing an adaptive approach, to ensure that the

7 The official USAID’s policy on gender equality and women’s empowerment expands on the legal definition for gender analysis provided by the WEEE Act and gives more instructions regarding gender integration in program design.

8 The WEEE Act makes gender analyses mandatory under federal law. The WEEE Act emphasizes the importance of gender integration in development projects, especially in the area of economic growth initiatives. It focuses on the positive outcomes of women’s entrepreneurship and economic empowerment in U.S. funded projects, which is presented as a crucial accelerator of sustainable development.

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/205.pdf https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3247/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3247/text learning that emerges can be translated to an adjusted activity implementation approach in collaboration with partners. The contractor will need to consider what types of short focused studies and methods will facilitate rapid activity feedback and would serve as compelling evidence for making in course corrections.

The contractor must propose a thorough Monitoring and Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Plan that will contribute to the Mission-wide Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) and the Economic and Food

Security Enhanced Project. The final activity MEL plan will include required (as applicable) indicators from both the PMP and project MEL Plan. Close monitoring based on USAID best practices, including a balanced set of outcome and output indicators, will be required for this activity. Proposed indicators must meet Agency and Mission Feed the Future and Resilience reporting requirements. Finally, the contractor must take into consideration the need for continued monitoring and evaluation of activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the contractor must indicate the monitoring approaches it plans to utilize for safe execution of the MEL plan.

Sustainability/Local Systems: The GOH has limited capacity and commitment, making self-reliance and sustainability a challenge. Therefore, it is even more essential to emphasize achieving well-functioning local systems. The Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR)9 country snapshot highlights the challenge with both the capacity and commitment of the GOH. Nevertheless, HRASA must leverage opportunities to support the GOH, including national and local governments, and community institutions on the journey to self-reliance; and also leverage the private sector as a way to support sustainability of program gains. To increase the likelihood of sustainability, the contractor must support the local systems in the context in which they work. Local systems refer to those interconnected sets of actors – government, civil society, the private sector, universities, individual citizens and others – that jointly produce a particular development outcome. Whether the local system will own the outcomes produced under this contract after it is finished must be a key consideration for planned activities.

Security: The security of beneficiaries and the contractor’s staff is of utmost concern to USAID/Haiti.

Given the escalation of security incidents in Haiti, it is imperative that the contractor develop a security plan that ensures institutionalized processes to track the security context in the operating zones, evaluate the risks to beneficiaries and the contractor’s staff, and implements steps to mitigate risks.

Environmental Compliance -Initial Environmental Examination (IEE): Activities performed under

HRASA must comply with USAID’s environmental regulations as mandated in 22 CFR 216.

Automated Directives System (ADS): Contractor must comply with ADS guidance, including information management and security policies. Guidance and policies include, but are not limited to, those established by the USAID’s Office of Security and Office of Privacy, the Chief Information

Officer (CIO), Open Data Policy, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Implementers are required by law to comply with branding and marking rules (ADS 320).

Languages: Although English is the primary language considered for this contract, work will also be required in languages other than English, specifically French and Haitian Creole. All reports, deliverables and communication materials submitted to USAID must be in English.

9 https://selfreliance.usaid.gov/docs/roadmaps/USAID_FY_2020_Haiti_Country_Roadmap_en_US.pdf https://selfreliance.usaid.gov/docs/roadmaps/USAID_FY_2020_Haiti_Country_Roadmap_en_US.pdf

Illustrative (not comprehensive) List of Documents with Potential Relevance to the New Activity

1) Feed the Future Indicator Handbook

2) https://www.marketlinks.org/post/market-systems-resilience-measurement-resources.

3) Resilience Capacities Measurement https://www.agrilinks.org/sites/default/files/ftf-indicator-handbook-march-2018-508.pdf https://www.marketlinks.org/post/market-systems-resilience-measurement-resources https://www.fsnnetwork.org/resilience-and-resilience-capacities-measurement-options e e e e e e e e e ee e e e e

Gon aive

Sain t Marc

Miragoan e

Hin che

Jacm el

Pign on

Jerem ie

Cap Haitian

Port Au Prin ce

An se-a-Galets

Belladeres

An se- Rouge

Port-Salut

Ouan am in the

Port De Paix

Fon ds Des Blan cs

Fort Liberte

Les Cayes

Data Sources: CNIGS Haiti, OSM 2016. DSDS, IHIS Haiti. Created 27 March 2019 Disclaim er: T he boun daries an d n am es used on this m ap do n ot im ply official en dorsem en t or acceptan ce by the U.S. Govern m en t. .

Legend e Airport Sea Term in al

Main Roads Prim ary Secon dary Tertiary

Hydrography Main rivers Lak es Departm en t boun daries

Resilience Focu s Zones 2019

Do m in ic an R ep ub lic

ZOI - 1 / ≈ 3540 sqk m / ≈ 703,000 ppl ZOI - 2 / ≈ 1154 sqk m / ≈ 465,000 ppl

≈ 4,700 sqkm & 1,2 million ppl

List of communes of the two Resilience Focus Zones

RFZ Department Commune North North Sainte Suzanne, Ranquite, La Victoire, Pignon, Saint-Raphael, Plaine du Nord, Acul du Nord, Limonade Quartier Morin, Caracol Trou du Nord

North’East Mont-organize, Carice, Vaillere, Capotille, Terrier Rouge, Perche, Fort- Liberte, Ferrier, Ouanamintthe

Central Plateau Hince, Cerca La Source, Cerca- Carvajale

South South Chardonnieres, Port-a Piment, Roches à Bateau, Arniquet, Port-Salut, Saint- Jean du Sud, Chantal, Torberc, Camp perrin, Lescayes

Purpose: Establish and strengthen a sustainable, inclusive agricultural market system that is resilient to shocks and stresses

Objectives Illustrative indicators Baseline

Yield1 of targeted agricultural Baseline data for most agricultural commodities are available at the Agriculture

Departmental Direction commodities among program participants with USG assistance

(disaggregated by age, sex, smallholder/non-smallholder)

Objective 1:

Increased

Market System

Value of annual sales of producers and firms receiving USG assistance (disaggregated by age, sex, smallholder/non-smallholder)

Baseline data are available through records of firms and enterprises that will be targeted as part of the solution provided by the offeror.

Efficiency

Number of technologies, practices, and approaches under various phases of research, development, and uptake as a result of USG assistance

Number of individuals and 0 producers in the agriculture system who have applied improved management practices or technologies with USG assistance

Value of New private sector investment in the targeted market system(s)

1 The Feed the Future definition for yield considers both livestock and plant (crop) production.

Objective 2:

Increased private sector investment and engagement across market systems

Number of partnerships between participants and private sector entities (disaggregated by segment of the market system)

Number of transactions between participants and private sector entities (disaggregated by segment of the market system) as a result of

USG assistance

Objective 3:

Increased household and community ability to recover from shocks and stresses

Percentage of participant households with diversified income sources

Baseline data from the resilience baseline for the North and Northeast departments. Additional data should be collected for the central plateau and the

South departments.

Percentage of participant households with increased productive asset ownership

Baseline data from the resilience baseline for the North and Northeast departments. Additional data should be collected for the central plateau and the

South departments.

Percentage of participant households accessing financial services

Baseline data from the resilience baseline for the North and Northeast departments. Additional data should be collected for the central plateau and the

South departments.

Percentage of participant households with improved absorptive and adaptive capacities

Baseline data from the resilience baseline for the North and Northeast departments. Additional data should be collected for the central plateau and the

South departments.

Number of participant communities with disaster early warning systems in place

Number of participants with access to market information (e.g.

pricing forecasts, gov’t policy information)