JA_Afghanistan_ISLA.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION (J&A)

DATE:

TO:

April 21, 2020

Jennifer Norling, Agency Competition Advocate (acting)

THROUGH: Peter Natiello, Mission Director

FROM: Jennifer Pike, Office of Democracy and Governance Director

SUBJECT: JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION (J&A)/8-month extension and $4.5 million ceiling increase for Initiative to Strengthen Local Administrations (ISLA), Contract No. AID-306- C-15-00005

1. This document sets forth the facts and rationale justifying the use of other than full and open competition, in accordance with AIDAR 706.302-70 (b)(5), Impairment of Foreign Aid Programs, continued provision of highly specialized services. This document was prepared by:

Contracting Agency: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Contracting Activity: USAID/Afghanistan Cognizant Technical Office: Office of Democracy and Governance (ODG) Contractor: Tetra Tech ARD Activity Title: Initiative to Strengthen Local Administrations (ISLA) Contract Number: AID-306-C-15-00005 Period of Performance: February 01, 2015 to July 30, 2020 Location: Afghanistan

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This is a request to approve:

a) an increase in the Total Estimated Cost (TEC) Plus Fixed Fee by $4.5 million from $48 million to $52.5 million for AID-306-C-15-00005, implemented by Tetra Tech ARD, Inc.;

and,

b) an eight-month extension to the Period of Performance (PoP) for AID-306-C-15-00005 from July 30, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Background On March 6, 2018, due to a series of budget cuts, ODG was required to make significant funding cuts to ISLA. As a result, the contract was de-scoped, reducing the TEC by $14.36 million from $62.36 to $48 million. This request to extend the contract by 8 -months and increase the TEC by $4.6 million will bring the contract back ringing you back to what was originally negotiated at the base award, before the contract was de-scoped.

Description Approval of this request will increase democracy, security, and stability in the 16 participating provinces, which are being impacted by both large numbers of returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) resulting from the uptick in violence from the ongoing insurgency. Because provincial administrations are the level of government closest to Afghan citizens and are areas where the government has greater control over security, they represent the best opportunities to increase public participation in the subnational decision making processes in order to bridge the gap between the citizens and the Government of Afghanistan, thereby increasing the legitimacy of the Afghan government.

Tetra Tech ARD's previous work in these 16 provinces represents a major investment by USAID in supporting them to develop the human and institutional capacity, as well as institutional resilience, to more effectively meet citizen priorities and service delivery needs in a sustainable manner that is transparent, accountable, and fully representative of citizen interests.

While these provinces have significantly improved in the areas of fiscal and development planning, citizen representation, public service delivery, women and youth engagement in subnational governance, and public engagement in the decision-making processes, a lot more remains to be done. Like other layers of the Afghan government, the ability of these subnational administration units to not only sustain these improvements, but also to continue to make significant progress in improving public service delivery, is critical for Afghanistan’s long-term security and socio-economic stability.

However, long-standing and significant challenges continue to confront the subnational administrations: insecurity due to the ongoing insurgency, limited revenue sources, the lack of political will to deconcentrate fiscal authority, the influx of rural populations and rapid urbanization, the spread of informal settlements, the lack of jobs and high unemployment, a demographic bulge of youth in need of employment, declining donor funding, widespread corruption, and the lack of staff capacity.

The stark reality is that despite the significant progress they have made to date, these 16 provincial administrations are not yet prepared to develop fiscal and development plans independently of external technical and financial support and become sustainable hubs of security, socio-economic stability and localized democracy. The challenges confronting them simply remain too immense and too many.

In order to ensure sustainability of the gains of USAID’s ongoing investment in these provincial administrations and to continue to further improve their human and institutional capacity, this extension is critical.

This TEC increase and extension of the PoP supports USAID’s strategic goals, outlined in the County Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) for Afghanistan, by continuing to provide technical support to 16 subnational administrations, as well as to the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG), Ministry of Finance (MOF) and Ministry of Economy (MoEc) with the aim to ensure sustainability of the gains made so far. Additionally, the extension will ensure continuity of the technical assistance to the participating subnational administrations until the follow-on to ISLA is awarded.

Furthermore, this request also supports the Afghan Government’s roadmap for subnational governance (Citizen-Centered Governance), which describes Afghanistan’s plan for ensuring economic and political development of the country. It will do so by supporting a combination of programs and activities that are aimed at enabling the Government of Afghanistan to prioritize service delivery and craft fiscal and development plans that represent subnational needs and priorities. ISLA’s activities will further improve subnational systems of planning, operations, communications, representation, and citizen engagement in the decision-making processes.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

The original award (AID-306-C-15-00005) was competed and subsequently awarded to Tetra Tech ARD on February 1, 2015, as a five-year, $62.36 million program. The program focused on 16 provincial administrations located along the ring road including the four provincial capitals of Kandahar, Hirat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Jalalabad.

During the third year of performance, Tectra Tech ARD was required to both downscale and de-scope program activities in response to USAID’s revised funding priorities at that time. Despite the decreased levels of funding, Tetra Tech ARD was able to continue providing technical support to the Afghan government on core governance areas, such as participatory development planning and budgeting, advocacy and lobbying for public service delivery, system strengthening, and governance operations and management. In May 2018, the Government of Afghanistan introduced a new strategy for subnational governance development titled Citizen-Centered Governance Strategy.

To ensure continuity of support for the implementation of the new strategy, proposed modification will support the activities outlined below:

● Ministerial Support: Interventions at the IDLG, MoEc and MOF levels will focus on the establishment of Regional Development Authorities (RDA), development of regional development strategies, provincial strategic plans, and support to MOF on the implementation of the Provincial Budgeting Policy and Public Private Partnership (PPP) law. Tetra Tech ARD will support IDLG and MoEc to establish the western RDA that covers the provinces of Herat, Badghis, and Farah, as ISLA is operational in all the three provinces. Tetra Tech ARD, in coordination with IDLG, also will support the western region in developing its Regional Development Strategy through technical assistance and planning sessions that would result in a model approach for the creation of RDAs in the other seven regions. Tetra Tech ARD will support MOF to develop guidelines in support of the implementation of the PPP law and the provincial budgeting policy.

● Planning and Budgeting: Tetra Tech ARD will support IDLG and the 16 provincial administrations to implement the revised Provincial Planning Guideline to ensure inclusion of citizen-identified priorities in the Provincial Development Plans (PDPs). Tetra Tech ARD will also support the MOF and the respective subnational administration actors to implement the Participatory Budgeting Guideline in order to ensure public participation in the budgeting processes.

● Subnational Institution Building: Support to Afghanistan Civil Service Institute will help institutionalize the training curricula that Tetra Tech ARD has developed for the institute.

The courses are part of the Afghan government’s orientation of new civil servants as part of its efforts to professionalize the civil service. Support will include training of trainers, as well as demand-driven trainings to national and provincial counterparts. Tetra Tech ARD will also maintain four technical embedded advisers in each of the 16 participating provinces to further strengthen human and institutional capacity.

● Inclusive Advocacy and Public Engagement: IDLG has signed an MoU with 140 CSOs across the country. Tetra Tech ARD will support IDLG to use this network of CSOs as a platform for public engagement and dialogue about the peace process in the 16 ISLA provinces. Tetra Tech ARD will support IDLG to facilitate public engagement events for the network and establish communication protocols. Tetra Tech ARD will also support the 16 provinces to conduct townhall meetings, public accountability sessions, budget hearing sessions, and public forums to discuss areas of common interest to local governments and citizens. Capacity-building support to the Gender Committees and Youth Commissions will enable these groups to better represent concerns in the decision-making processes.

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition: In accordance with AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(5), under title 40 U.S.C. 474, an exception to full and open competition is permitted for the continued provision of highly specialized services “when award to another resource would result in substantial additional costs to the government or would result in unacceptable delays.”

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition that requires use of the authority cited: The services currently provided by Tetra Tech ARD under the ISLA contract are “highly specialized,” and giving an award to another resource would result in unacceptable delays, as follows:

(a) The services provided by the current resource are highly specialized:

● As a result of Tetra Tech ARD’s support to the 16 Provincial Development Committees, through ISLA, the quality of provincial development plans (PDPs) has improved significantly, thus becoming increasingly inclusive of citizen-identified needs and priorities. These plans must be developed annually, so continuing support for this work is important to solidify those recent gains in provincial government’s planning capacity – particularly this year with a potential peace accord on the horizon. Without this extension, that support could not be provided.

● With the assistance of Tetra Tech ARD’s technical experts and embedded advisors to the development planning and budgeting entities at the national and subnational levels, the percentage of provinces with PDPs included in the national budget increased from 11 percent in 2018 to 15 percent in 2019. This expertise continues to be required to prepare for the coming budget planning cycle.

● Tetra Tech ARD’s international and national experts supported the Afghan government to review and revise 77 public policies and procedures, such as Provincial Communications Plans and Annual Public Information Plans for all 16 participating provinces. The review of these polices has tangibly improved the ability of Afghan government employees to deliver services to their constituents. This expertise continues to be required because other policies, procedures and guidelines need to be reviewed and revised in order to further improve public service delivery. These policies, procedures and guidelines include but are not limited to guidelines pertaining to the implementation of the PPP law and guidelines for the implementation of the Subnational Governance Policy.

● Tetra Tech ARD supported Organizational Capacity Development Assessments in 32 subnational entities across the 16 provinces. These assessments yielded data on capacity, systems, communications, and coordination of subnational governance at the national and provincial level. This expertise continues to be required because these Organizational Capacity Development Assessments will be conducted for other subnational administration bodies, such as Provincial Governor’s Offices (PGOs) and select Line Directorates.

● Tetra Tech ARD’s experts supported IDLG, MoEc, and MOF to develop a number of key documents such as Provincial Development Planning Guidelines, Participatory Budgeting Guidelines, Advocacy and Lobbying Guidelines, Townhall Meeting Manual, Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool, and Citizen-Based Monitoring Tool that are aimed at improving public service delivery at the subnational level. As a result of the development and rollout of these guidelines and tools, government accountability to citizens as well as public service delivery have improved to a great extent. This expertise continues to be required to ensure that these tools and systems are institutionalized and sustained.

The above information serves to demonstrate that the services performed by Tetra Tech ARD under the ISLA activity are highly specialized and would not be readily available for immediate deployment.

(b) Giving an award to another resource would result in unacceptable delays:

● Selecting an implementer other than Tetra Tech for this work would result in this assistance not being provided during the current Afghanistan budget cycle due to start-up costs. Tetra Tech ARD currently has offices and staff embedded in all the 16 ISLA provinces that can continue providing the needed technical assistance without any gap.

● Tetra Tech ARD has established productive relationships with partnering Afghan government entities and officials. As the trust-building process between the implementing partner and the Government of Afghanistan is extremely time consuming, transferring this work to another partner would delay implementation by several months or more. Such delay would result in loss of momentum and could cause huge gaps in the delivery of the public services that are funded as a result of key milestones that must be met during the budget cycle.

If the subject modification is not approved, two major adverse implications may occur:

● Political instability and humanitarian crisis: In light of a potential peace accord, internally displaced persons and returnees are expected to move into urban areas at an increasing pace, putting new pressures for service delivery on provincial administrations.

Without this proposed modification, the partner subnational administrations could be unable to adapt to the new demands, leading to broken trust between citizens and government and potential instability and humanitarian crisis.

● Reversal of progress toward self-reliance: Afghanistan’s new Citizen-Centered Governance Policy and subnational governance strategy are still in the early stages of implementation and are key to decentralization of power in Afghanistan. USAID, through Tetra Tech ARD, has provided essential support to relevant ministries and partner provincial governance authorities to carry out these policies, which strengthens the practical interaction between citizens and government. Any gap in services this year risks loss of all progress on that front and erosion of tenuous public trust - an outcome particularly troubling at this stage of Afghanistan’s transition to post-conflict.

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was publicized as required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.203 [AIDAR 705.2]: The synopsis required by FAR 5.201 was publicized on April 6, 2020, with a closing date of April 20, 2020, at the following link:

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/e7e1752f12a747cabfd899fc47026862/view?index=opp&page=1&orga nization_id=100148640. This J&A document will be made public through the System for Award Management website (beta.sam.gov).

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable: In accordance with FAR 15.402, adequate cost competition took place when the original award was competed. The Contracting Officer will ensure that all services procured under the proposed TEC increase will be fair and reasonable based on historical costs and review of proposed costs.

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted: As indicated, the original award (AID-306-C-15-00005) was competed and subsequently awarded to Tetra Tech ARD (Tetra Tech). Pursuant to FAR part 10, the technical office and the CO have conducted market research for the life of the award in https://beta.sam.gov/opp/e7e1752f12a747cabfd899fc47026862/view?index=opp&page=1&organization_id=100148640 https://beta.sam.gov/opp/e7e1752f12a747cabfd899fc47026862/view?index=opp&page=1&organization_id=100148640 https://beta.sam.gov/ support of modifications to the award. Tetra Tech ARD has been implementing governance activities in Afghanistan for several years and has established a unique relationship with Afghan Government counterparts. Although there may be other implementing partners with similar skills, there are none with the specialized knowledge, experience and active relationships needed to mobilize immediately, preventing loss of momentum on the important budget and planning tasks ahead.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: This cost extension of the ISLA activity until March 31, 2021, will ensure a smooth transition between ISLA and a new activity that is planned to be awarded through full and open competition. Further, all proposed activities fall under the original scope and scale of the original award in February 2015.

The quality of services rendered by Tetra Tech ARD/ISLA has been good, resulting in enhanced public service delivery to Afghan citizens. Tetra Tech ARD/ISLA has demonstrated notable programmatic progress in achieving the expected goals of the activity. As a result of Tetra Tech ARD/ISLA’s technical support, the institutional and human capacity of partner ministries and subnational administrations have remarkably improved, thus contributing to the future stability and economic growth of Afghanistan.

Since commencement of the project in 2015, Tetra Tech/ISLA has met all contractual requirements.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition: No responses received.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required: This action falls within the scope of the original contract awarded in February 2015. The TEC will not exceed the original dollar value of the contract which is capped at $62.36 million. Tetra Tech ARD/ ISLA can perform the efforts envisioned in the plan for the cost-extension.

Any future changes in the scope or TEC of the ISLA contract outside of what was originally awarded in 2015 will be competed through a full and open competition.

12. Technical or requirement personnel certification: In accordance with FAR 6.303.2(b), I hereby certify that the technical statements included above, and which form a basis for the justification, are complete and accurate.

email clearance April 12, 2020 Contracting Officer Representative, Fazil Aman Date

13. Contracting Officer Certifications: I hereby certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

email clearance April 12, 2020 Contracting Officer, Diego Marquez Date

14. Clearance email clearance April 16, 2020 Regional Legal Officer, James Noel Date

15. Approval of the Agency Competition Advocate: AIDAR 706.302-70(c)(4) states that the use of the authority in 706.302-70(b)(5) requires the approval of the Agency Competition Advocate.

tbaldwin Stamp

CLEARANCE PAGE: JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND

OPEN COMPETITION (J&A)/ 8-month Period of Performance extension + $4.5 million increase the Total Estimated Cost for Initiative to Strengthen Local Administrations (ISLA), Contract No. AID-306-C-15-00005.

Drafted by: FAZIL AMAN, ODG

Submitted by:

email clearance Jennifer Pike, ODG

Clearances:

email clearance Lacy Kilraine, OPPD email clearance Deputy Mission Director, Joel Sandefur

April 12, 2020 Date

April 16, 2020 Date

April 16, 2020 Date